About Phasix ESD

Phasix ESD offices in Andover, Hampshire Phasix is an established semiconductor device ESD test centre located in Hampshire, Southern England. We have been involved in ESD test for more than 40 years with extensive experience of developing and maintaining ESD test equipment, delivering testing services and driving testing Standards forward through Standards Committee participation.

Our business philosophy is based on adding value to our customers businesses by taking care of aspects of their work which are not necessarily part of their core competence. Phasix focuses on Semiconductor Quality and Reliability, helping our customers to ensure that their products are sufficiently robust to guarantee reliability in their intended end-use. We understand our customers need for ESD testing in a timescale which fits into their, often very tight, design schedule. For this reason we offer a highly responsive and flexible service with an emphasis on getting the maximum useable information about ESD sensitivity in the shortest practicable time.

Executive Management Team

Technical Director - Paul Phillips.

Paul Phillips, Technical Director, Phasix ESD Educated to BSc in Electrical Engineering from Southampton University, Paul has been working in the ESD industry for more than 40 years. Paul is a member of several ESD Standards committees including the Joint ESDA/JEDEC HBM and CDM Working Groups which are responsible for the most popular ESD testing standards. Originally started in the ESD industry with TMT and Verifier Systems, the designers and manufacturers of the V1, V2, V3 and RCDM ESD and Latch-Up test systems. After Verifier Systems was merged with Thermo and moved to the USA in 1997 Paul founded and ran Accelonix, a product distribution and technical services business in the UK. Accelonix was Thermo's UK and Ireland distribution channel for eleven years, selling and supporting a number of ESD and Latch-Up test systems.

Carl Simon, Technical Director, Phasix ESD

Commercial Director - Carl Simon.

Carl Simon is our main commercial contact and has a broad engineering and business background covering Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Operations and General Management experience. Carl gained his MBA in 2000 which supplements his BSc in Electrical/Electronic Engineering from the University of Hertfordshire. His later activities as a Management Consultant, which provided practical help to SMEs in Sales, Marketing, Operations, HR and business planning, cemented his partnership with Paul and lead to the founding of Phasix ESD in 2008.

Our Capabilities

Our capability is about more than just an equipment list. Our expertise spans many decades, so we are able to routinely tackle difficult ESD and Latch up challenges, often starting where other labs finish. This covers look ahead phase exploration of the robustness of a new device with associated debug, as well as the more formal Qualification phase.

To support such activities, we have several traditional relay matrix based ESD test systems with socketed test fixtures, the largest of which has 768 individual channels, giving us the ability to test parts in excess of 2000 pins. We use these for Human body Model (HBM) and Machine Model (MM) ESD tests and curve tracing. These systems are compliant with the latest revisions of all commonly used testing standards including in respect of pre-pulse voltage rise and trailing current pulse.

Where even higher pincount devices, physically demanding devices, or simply devices with no test socket solution yet exists, we can offer our 2 pin robotic tester for HBM testing free from any socket or fixturing constraints.

We also have industry standard testers for FICDM testing.

For Latch-Up and curve tracing we again rely on the use of one of the aforementioned systems, the largest of which supports up to five DUT power supplies internally, with the capability to add external supplies for devices which need more. We are also able to handle high current devices with a current capacity up to 600A.

We maintain our equipment ourselves and calibrate our equipment using Tektronix 400MHz oscilloscopes before and after each set of ESD tests. For CDM we use a LeCroy SDA 6000 6GHz oscilloscope to ensure the tests we perform are fully in compliance with the relevant testing standards.

Our 2 pin robotic tester has an additional capability for Transmission Line Pulse (TLP) testing which is invaluable for ESD protection structure debugging and characterisation.