Home Knowledge Base Sampled Wafer Test

Sampled Wafer Test is a production strategy that tests only a subset of die on a wafer to reduce test time and cost while maintaining statistical quality control.

What Is Sampled Wafer Test?

Why Sampled Testing Is Used

For mature products with >99% yield, testing every die is economically inefficient. Statistical sampling provides adequate quality assurance.

Sampling Patterns:
100% Test:           Grid Sampling:        Random Sampling:
● ● ● ● ● ●         ●   ●   ●   ●        ●     ●       
● ● ● ● ● ●           ○   ○   ○          ○   ●   ○   ● 
● ● ● ● ● ●         ●   ●   ●   ●            ●       ● 
● ● ● ● ● ●           ○   ○   ○          ● ○     ○     
● ● ● ● ● ●         ●   ●   ●   ●          ●   ●   ○ ● 

● = tested           ○ = not tested
Full coverage        Statistical coverage

Sampling Decision Factors:

FactorFull TestSampling OK
Yield<95%>99%
Safety criticalAlways fullNever sample
Margin to specTightComfortable
Test costLowHigh
sampled wafer teststatistical testingdie sampling

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