Patent ID: 7853848

Claim:
A system for detection and analysis of systematic conditions occurring in manufactured devices, said manufactured devices being manufactured according to same design and ground rules and said system comprising: a signature generator receiving testing results from essentially identical and repeatable testing performed on said manufactured devices and further generating, based on said testing results, corresponding signatures for said manufactured devices each signature comprising values for an initial set of signature definitions and said signature definitions comprising at least one of electrical properties, physical properties, performance information, environmental information, statistically abnormal data, power metrics, electrically coded information and manufacturing process information; a systematic condition detector in communication with said signature generator and detecting a systematic condition occurring in at least some of said manufactured devices based on commonalities between at least some of said corresponding signatures for said manufactured devices, said systematic condition comprising a condition that is observed and that occurs non-randomly; a systematic condition analyzer in communication with said systematic condition detector and analyzing said systematic condition by analyzing said at least some of said corresponding signatures having said commonalities to develop a list of underlying similarities between said at least some of said manufactured devices, said list comprising any of characteristics, features, parameters, defects and defect mechanisms indicative of at least one potential root cause of said systematic condition; a signature definitions selector; and a data selector, said systematic condition analyzer further outputting analysis results to at least one of said signature definitions selector and said data selector, said signature definitions selector further automatically creating a revised set of said signature definitions, based on said analysis results, said data selector further automatically selecting different testing data, based on said analysis results, and said signature generator further generating new signatures using at least one of said revised set and said different testing data.