Continuous test flow method and apparatus

Abstract

A method for testing devices produced in front end lots involving loading a plurality of front end lots into a tester without requiring the tester to complete tests on a previous front end lot. A secondary lot of devices is unloaded from the tester, the secondary lot containing devices from a plurality of front end lots. The plurality of front-end lots may form a batch. In this case, a plurality of secondary lots unloaded from the tester could correspond to the front-end lots, and could be considered to be part of the same batch. All secondary lots of the batch, except for the last secondary lot of the batch, may contain only pass devices, such that all fail devices from the batch are unloaded and then tested together, in the last secondary lot. The loading of the front-end lots may be asynchronous with the unloading of the secondary lots.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.