[By NBC-1TV H. J Yook]Leading semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation (TSE: 6857) (NYSE: ATE) has installed its 500th V93000 Port Scale RF test system, with the landmark unit going into the engineering development laboratory of Spreadtrum Communications (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., a fabless semiconductor company developing mobile ICs for the wireless communications market. Spreadtrum has begun using the versatile tester, which is equipped with both a Pin Scale 1600 digital card and a MB-AV8+ analog card, to develop semiconductor products for mobile phone applications, including RF-based system-on-chip (SOC) and 3G baseband devices.

“Advantest‘s V93000 platform is helping us to perform high-end testing on very cost-sensitive devices,” said Eric Zhu, manufacturing director at Spreadtrum. “In addition, Advantest’s 24x7 customer engineering support services underscore their steadfast commitment to our mutual success.”

Spreadtrum is the leading supplier of semiconductor solutions for China's 3G TD-SCDMA mobile telecommunications standard. The company also produces communication ICs for the 2.5G and EDGE mobile phone markets.

With its per-pin architecture, Advantest‘s V93000 Smart Scale™ Generation achieves the highest cost efficiencies in testing wireless semiconductor devices. When equipped with Pin Scale 1600 digital channel cards, V93000 Port Scale RF test systems provide best-in-class per-pin capabilities, including individual clock domains, high-accuracy DC testing and digital performance. For testing RF devices, Advantest’s MB-AV8+ analog card enables high throughput while maintaining compatibility with established MB-AV8 instruments. It also expands real-time analog bandwidth to support next-generation products on customers‘ roadmaps, including Spreadtrum’s 4G LTE advanced devices.