February 20, 2024

As a tradition spanning more than a decade, NplusT assigned the MOCCA award also in 2023, honoring the user of NplusT products and services demonstrating the highest creativity, imagination, and dedication.

This year, the award was granted to the team of Weebit Nano, a provider of ReRAM non-volatile memory (NVM) technology, for their introduction of the TESTMESH TMA-100 NVM characterization equipment in their workflow. The Weebit team includes: Ori Livne, Director of Testing; Alessandro Bricalli PhD, R&D Engineer; Giuseppe Piccolboni PhD, R&D Engineer; and Matan Guttman, Test Engineer.

Tamás Kerekes, President and CEO of NplusT:

I have been following Weebit Nano since their very early days and I was impressed by how quickly the team was able to bring up a very new, extremely challenging technology. I am happy to support the company on their path to success. Weebit Nano is among the first users of our latest non-volatile memory characterization equipment, TESTMESH TMA-100, and certainly the first to apply it across multiple stages of technology development, from basic test devices to complex modules with embedded micro and digital interface. I am looking forward to continuing being part of Weebit Nano’s technology evaluation process.

Ilan Sever, VP of R&D, of Weebit Nano:

When developing a new memory technology like Weebit ReRAM, selecting the best testing and characterization solutions is a priority. We are delighted to partner with the team at NplusT, making its TESTMESH TMA-100 a key part of our flow. Together we designed the software, load boards and probe cards, going deep into every technical aspect.
At Weebit Nano, our products often have distinct working methodologies, and the TMA-100 easily accommodates these different procedures. This includes for example the ability to easily collaborate on the same platform with our R&D partner CEA-Leti.
Across our developments, the TMA-100 has saved us a lot of time and effort through product flexibility, the ability to reuse past developments, and the close support we receive from NplusT.

Weebit’s Ori Livne (left) and Matan Guttman (right) with the TESTMESH TMA-100
Weebit’s Ori Livne (left) and Matan Guttman (right) with the TESTMESH TMA-100


October 31, 2023

We have decided to assign a special edition of our yearly MOCCA (MOst Creative Customer Award), to appreciate the long-term cooperation with Andreas Kux and Volker Pissors from Infineon.

Tamás Kerekes comments the award:
“Andreas and Volker are retiring. We have worked together on many challenging projects for over more than 25 years. We were not just their suppliers, and they were not only just our customers: we were a team striving to achieve results.
We achieved such results, spending days and sometimes nights in the laboratory. Andreas surely remembers when we demonstrated a sotiware bug by shorting a resistor deeply inside a climatic chamber. Volker might never forget how a tiny FPGA timing error caused unexplainable array content.
Over these 25 years, I have learnt a lot from Andreas and from Volker. And what I have learnt today is inside our TESTMESH, NanoCycler and BarnieMAT products. Andreas, Volker, thanks for your cooperation. I am looking forward to staying in touch with you. Our business relationship might be ending, but our friendship will remain.”

Dr. Volker Pissors, adds:

“Episode 1 – before Qimonda

My career at INFINEON started mid of 2000 – first as product engineer for wireless chips. In 2001 I have got the chance to join a young development team working on a new NAND and NOR compatible technology.

Looking for a flexible and easy to use ATE for NVM devices we found the RIFLE. The first device under test was a tiny NVM array implementing the base macro of the targeted NAND and NOR compatible products. Testing this macro on the RIFLE we learned a lot about this new NVM technology called NROM.

In the next development phase, we used the RIFLE also for first characterization and reliability tests. The included RIFLE software tools accelerated the engineering work a lot (plot distributions, digital and analogue bitmaps, fail bit addresses, etc.).

Episode 2 – Qimonda

At Qimonda, a memory spin-off of INFINEON, we used the RIFLE SE (second edition) for characterizing new MLC NAND macros. The extended digital control capabilities of the RIFLE SE enabled the operation control of this macro (read, erase and multilevel program).

Finally, the first 16Gbit NAND product of Qimonda was characterized using RIFLE SE in 2007. The filtering engine of the BarnieMAT tool have been co-developed in 2007. Still a powerful feature of BarnieMAT today.

Episode 3 – today

Today the collaboration is focused on data analysis using BarnieMAT (see MOCCA 2019).

Episode 4 – the future

My successors will look for new engineering test equipment – a new and great opportunity for a NplusT hardware revival at INFINEON!”

Dr. Andreas Kux also shares:
“After starting at INFINEON 1995 in the development of EEPROM for chipcard application I am sharing a lot of the path and episodes as described by Volker Pissors. Focus on my side was geting products ready for qualification and – especially in NAND development – supporting that
from the very early stages of development.
Key points in the first phase of working with NplusT (episodes 1&2) were

  • RIFLE as bench tester for NROM technology was available on quite a number of product engineering workplaces coming with software for immediate visibility of results supporting low cycle time in analyses;
  • Increased use of analysis features was leading to the approach to make bitmap tooling available also offline as part of Barnie package;
  • NAND multi-level visualization was defined and implemented together with NplusT.

When I started to work for INFINEON automotive microcontrollers there was an already existing link to NplusT based on a RIFLE SE test system. The software part was revived and extended in two major steps (episode 3).

  • The starting point for using Barnie was providing a unique base for bitmapping in FAR handling for a wide range of products;
  • Since then colleagues took over expanding the use of Barnie not only for analysis but also linked to production data (see MOCCA 2019).”


April 3, 2023

Every year, the Most Creative Customer Award highlights and rewards the most advanced and creative utilization of NplusT’s products and services. The 2022 MoCCA has been awarded to STMicroelectronics Automotive Digital FA Team, for their activities setting up a failure analysis solution for embedded PCM memories. The ST team is managed by Peter Cini, Automotive and Discrete Group (ADG) Digital FA Manager; the project manager is Sergio Scrofani, ADG Digital FA Senior Engineer.

Tamás Kerekes, President and CEO of NplusT:
We have a long-term collaboration with Peter, Sergio and the ST team. In the last period, we saw a significant increase in the challenges of implementing advanced failure analysis solutions, following the trend of the complexity of the automotive microcontroller products. Thanks to the work of Sergio, together with our Test Application Manager Alessandro Feriani, we’ve set up a new concept dedicated to PCM. This solution, created on top of our test platform and BarnieMAT data analysis software, is able to identify potential root causes of the failures through execution of specific electrical tests and measurements.

Peter Cini , STMicroelectronics ADG Digital FA Manager:
STMicroelectronics has collaborated with NplusT to develop embedded memory failure analysis diagnostic tools for Stellar MCUs, ST’s family of automotive microcontrollers for next-generation vehicles. Based on NplusT’s XINTscope and BarnieMAT platforms, the innovative tools provide a comprehensive diagnostic solution paired with a user-friendly and intuitive GUI that delivers efficient and effective failure analysis on our high-performance, highly sophisticated controllers.

NplusT MoCCA 2022 - STMicroelectronics Automotive Digital FA Team
MoCCA 2022 – STMicroelectronics Automotive Digital FA Team


April 4, 2022

The MOCCA 2021 has been assigned to the TenaFe NAND Characterization Team, lead by Curry Zhang & Sean Huang.
NplusT grants MOCCA (MOst Creative Customer Award) to users of NplusT products and services who leverage the most of the features and performance of such products making use of innovative approaches.

Tamas Kerekes, President and CEO of NplusT:
“I am really happy to see the level of understanding of the NAND, what Tenafe reached using NanoCycler. Curry with his team have developed a powerful infrastructure on top of the API provided with NanoCycler, and are using it efficiently to generate the necessary data and knowledge. This is the first time that MOCCA goes to China – I am extremely pleased about that, as I see a very fast evolution in technology and knowledge. The Chinese storage industry is evolving very fast, it is one of our strategic market targets: today we have several users of our products and technologies in China.

Curry Zhang, Senior Validation Manager of TenaFe:
“We’ve used NplusT NanoCycler for over 2 years, with the main purpose of NAND characterization, collecting data for our media management algorithm. As an SSD controller company, we need to adopt NAND from different vendors. Although we have our own controller and silicon, NanoCycler is still very helpful as a 3rd party tool. We use it frequently, every month, almost every week, for these reasons:

  • It has powerful NAND command API: we can development testsuites on top of; and it is flexible enough to support all kinds of NAND. When we get a new NAND, we only need 1 or 2 days to bring it up on NanoCycler, then we can start collecting the data we want;
  • It is very stable, we usually run it for weeks;
  • It has its own temperature control system, which is very impressive: we can easily and automatically control NAND temperature as whatever we want, for example erase and program in 30°C, read in 70°C, and we don’t even need to have a chamber to do so;
  • Within the last 2 years, we finished NAND characterization of more than 8 different NAND types from various vendors;
  • Last thing and most importantly, engineers of NplusT are nice and professional: we communicated a lot and they always gave us quick responses and an efficient support.”



March 7, 2021

Every year, NplusT assigns the MOCCA (MOst Creative Customer Award) to those users, whose innovative applications and solutions enhance the utilization and performance of NplusT products. The year 2020 MOCCA has been assigned to Niccolò Castellani, R&D Engineer at CEA-LETI, Grenoble, for developing a software platform for the automation of non-volatile memory test flow execution on NplusT’s test equipment.

Tamas Kerekes, President and CEO of NplusT:
“I am really happy to see the way how Niccolò and the LETI team approached their specific requirements. The software framework, which Niccolò has created on top of the execution environment of the tester, enables the easy development of characterization programs for a wide range of novel, emerging non-volatile memory technologies. We plan to continue supporting LETI, providing innovative test platforms which enable fast and accurate measurements, contributing to develop high-performance, low-power, reliable storage devices.”

Niccolo Castellani, R&D engineer at CEA-Leti:
“I started this project a couple of years ago, having already experienced test developing and data analysis for research and industrial requirements. I’ve been always convinced about the real need of versatility for the R&D of merging memories testing. Only NplusT was able to provide the right tools and the right support team to accomplish my objective: a hardware to user interface getting plug-and-play new designs and new algorithms in its environment. I’m willing to continue this great collaboration.”



February 10, 2020

The MOCCA 2019 (MOst Creative Customer Award) was assigned to Nellina Mautone, appreciating her activities in flash data analysis using BarnieMAT.

Tamás Kerekes, President and CEO of NplusT:
“We are really appreciating the cooperation with Nellina and with the entire Infineon team.
The developed toolset, based on our BarnieMAT technology, is an excellent example of efficient management of large quantities of data aimed at extracting and presenting information in a way that is intelligible to the human brain, in order to reach faster and safer decisions. Infineon is also an important partner in the definition of the product roadmap, asking for new features according to the changing needs of the user community.”

Nellina Mautone, Staff Engineer of Infineon Technologies:
“When we started our project around a year ago, one of our main challenges was the application of BarnieMAT, until then used for technology analysis, in a different environment for processing manufacturing data. Our team, which involves several students and benefits from the expertise of Mr. Rudolf Ullmann (Lead Principal Engineer of Infineon Technologies Munich), needed and continues to need more features and better performance.
The integration with an external Python-based data processing environment is an answer to ever-challenging demands, and proved to be an enabler of our work. We see BarnieMAT as a well-structured and well-supported tool, matching our requirements and ensuring the maturity which allows us to focus on our analysis tasks.”



July 4, 2019

The MOCCA 2018 (“MOst Creative Customer Award”) has been assigned to the GAMAX team, appreciating more than ten years of intense cooperation in the software development arena. GAMAX provides a continuous support – based on outstanding knowledge and on innovative technology – and many of NplusT products embed GAMAX code. From 2018, GAMAX is also using NplusT array data analysis software tools which, integrated with MATLAB, opens the gate to new applications on regular structures.

Tamás Kerekes, President and CEO of NplusT:“GAMAX is the ideal partner in co-development of our software. Their quality and reaction time when support is needed is excellent. I am particularly pleased about GAMAX innovative attitude and the way they introduce new technologies without raising the risk factor. Last year we worked with GAMAX also in the opposite way, transferring our array data analysis technology to them and I can say this was the fastest and most efficient introduction of the toolset since we market it.”

Géza Homonnay, Managing Director of GAMAX: “We are proud to receive this MOCCA award from one of our most important partners, showing our ability to fulfill interesting challenges. We have been active in software development and other software related activities during the last 30 years. Having received similar acknowledgement from Microsoft for software localization, from Oracle for software consulting and from MathWorks for software distribution, we will be strengthening our efforts to serve our valued partners the best possible way.”



December 12, 2017

The year 2017 MOCCA (MOst Creative Customer Award) went to the MICROSEMI team for their cooperation in the development of the GARDA test solution.

GARDA has been created for understanding functionalities, performances and reliability of next generation memory devices targeting mass storage applications. For achieving the required 1.6GT/s transfer rate between the memory tester and the device under test, a dedicated hardware solution has been developed. The software architecture and environment have been transferred from the RIFLE platform, extending it with dedicated FPGA front end code.

“I prefer to work with teams like Microsemi” – Tamas Kerekes, President and CEO of NplusT says. “This team is very demanding, they know what they want to obtain and they are willing to cooperate in the identification and implementation of the optimal technical solutions. The 14-week delivery time would have been impossible without such a cooperation”.

“The Storage industry is continuously looking for new non-volatile memory technologies and being able to technically vet each of the new options is key for deciding where to invest the R&D dollars. NplusT offers a unique combination of hardware and software capabilities for memory testing. The collaboration between the 2 teams has been amazing and it is worth highlighting that the platform Garda was delivered on time meeting all the required technical specifications”, said Rino Micheloni, Technical Fellow in the Performance Storage business unit and Managing Director of Microsemi Storage Solutions Italy. “We are looking forward to expanding this collaboration in the near future even further”.

MOCCA 2017 NplusT Microsemi



December 14, 2016

The yearly MOCCA (MOst Creative Customer Award), recognising the user with the highest contribution in the application of NplusT tools, was assigned to the STMicroelectronics Team lead by Luisa Fracassini and composed of Domenico Ausilio, Andrea Boroni, Emanuele Capitanio and Sergio Pozzi from QMS, CSR & Central Labs department.

As a result of development and evolution of the software tool SIREN, built on NplusT LabVisor technology, hundreds of equipment and instrumentation installed in several Qualification and Validation laboratories are being taken under control. SIREN today serves a large community of users in their daily tasks such as monitoring, booking, maintenance and utilization statistics.

MoCCA 2016 - ST Microelectronics

Since we started the project, I was always impressed by the strong focus of the team to create a tool which is really useable and used. Continuous new ideas of improvement and extension – together with active cooperation in the development – helped to obtain the status that today SIREN is one of the software tools created by NplusT which is the most extensively used.
Tamas Kerekes, President and CEO of NplusT

SIREN has been conceived since the beginning as a growing tool with the ambitious purpose to arrive finally to manage with a single system multiple and heterogeneous Electrical Qualification and Validation laboratories. This long term vision target could be achievable only with a deep, side by side interaction and cooperation between various ST entities and NplusT, working on the development of one step in an optic of compatibility with the future ones.
Luisa Fracassini, QMS, CSR & Central Labs Manager, STMicroelectronics



December 2, 2015

The MOCCA (MOst Creative Customer Award) 2015 has been assigned to the NVM R&D team of TowerJazz, Israel. Every year NplusT assigns MOCCA to the customer team which applies NplusT tools in the most innovative and productive way.

The team, led by Mr. Micha Gutman NVM R&D Mgr. and composed of Mr. Vladislav Dayan Expert Design Eng., Mr. Tamir Eshkoli Senior Staff Rel Eng., Mr. Dmitry Lechinsky Test Eng., Mr. Daniel Nahmad Staff Device Eng. and Mr. Eran Yeroslavich Test Eng., replaced a traditional ATE with RIFLE and BarnieMAT in the design validation and characterization of new non-volatile memory technologies.

I was impressed how fast the TowerJazz team started to work efficiently with our tools and, which is most important, to obtain the expected results. We highlight the ‘time-to-result’ as one of the most important added value of our toolset and this project is a perfect demonstration of it.
Tamas Kerekes, President and CEO of NplusT

Our decision of using RIFLE and BarnieMAT in our design validation process outperformed the expectations. I was surprised by the progress of validation of every single device function, as the result of a strict collaboration of NplusT and our team. The easy and flexible programming, together with a good visibility on the device status creates an important step forward in our workflow.
Mr. Micha Gutman, NVM R&D Mgr. TowerJazz, Israel


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