A Novel Plug-in Module Architecture for Extending Automatic Test Equipment Capability to Wireless Testing of Pin-Less Semiconductor Devices
Contactless integrated circuits are increasingly used in wireless identification, secure transactions, and shortrange communication applications. Devices such as Near Field Communication (NFC), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), smart cards, and secure identification modules operate through electromagnetic coupling using on-chip antenna structures, enabling power harvesting and bidirectional communication without dedicated electrical interfaces. However, production testers such as Advantest and Teradyne are primarily designed for electrical pin-based testing and do not natively support validation of contactless communication behavior. This work proposes a productioncompatible wireless validation architecture that enables contactless device characterization within an automated production test environment. The proposed approach integrates a wireless interface on the load board consisting of a radio-frequency stimulus generator, protocol conversion layer, near-field coupling antenna, and signal demodulation receiver synchronized with the tester control framework. This enables automated carrier generation, command modulation, and capture of load-modulated responses from the device under test. Experimental validation was performed using NFCenabled RFID tag devices across 120 samples. Carrier field detection showed reliable activation above 1.6 A/m, while RF power harvesting generated internal supply voltages between 2.4 V and 2.8 V. Load-modulated responses ranged from 180-240 mV, enabling reliable demodulation and protocol decoding. Command-response operations, including Unique Identifier (UID) read, memory access, and anti-collision, achieved a bit error rate below 10−6 with an average communication latency of $3.2 \mu ~\mathrm{s}$ and less than 4% device variation. Results showed over 96% correlation with conventional bench validation, demonstrating the feasibility of scalable production testing of contactless semiconductor devices.