Advantest's VOICE 2012 Semiconductor Test Conference Attracts Over 300 Attendees From Around the World

CUPERTINO, CA--(Marketwire - May 10, 2012) - The 2012 edition of the VOICE annual Users Group Conference organized by premier semiconductor test company Advantest (NYSE: ATE) and a committee of partner companies, attracted over 300 SOC test engineers and managers from 41 companies to San Jose, California, on April 24-25. This year's event set a new record for registered attendees with many of them traveling from various locations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel and Asia. The event also marked another important milestone. It was the first public event following the completion of Verigy's integration into Advantest on April 1, 2012. Furthermore, for the first time, Advantest T2000 customers attended and presented technical papers and hosted technology kiosks.

Continuing the growth in technical content from each of its previous years, VOICE 2012 featured more than 65 presentations and 20 kiosks -- a new record high -- on the latest technologies and techniques for semiconductor testing. Presentations were organized in nine tracks covering real-world customer needs. By vote, conference attendees recognized the following papers as the most outstanding:

• Best Paper 1 in the Test Time Reduction track, "Handle Data Processing Across Interdependent SmartCalc Enabled Test Suites," by Gustavo Rivera, Kar Leong Foong and Qi Tang of Qualcomm
  
  
• Best Paper 2 in the Rapid Development track, "Offline Results Emulation -- nVidia Use Case," by Joe Sarmiento of nVidia and Sangeet Karamchandani of Advantest
  
  

"Now in its sixth year, VOICE continues to develop and grow with the addition of T2000 presentations and technology kiosks," said Freescale's Gabriel Tellechea, chairperson of the VOICE 2012 conference committee. "The opportunity to talk technology with more than 300 peers from fabless semiconductor companies, test houses, foundries and IDMs (integrated device manufacturers) has made VOICE a must-attend event for the international test community."

VOICE 2012 also included a keynote presentation by Mitch Ditkoff, author, blogger and creativity management consultant, as well as an advanced workshop for test engineers.

"Advantest is excited to add VOICE to the list of events offered to our world-wide customers to help them learn best practices and techniques to reduce their testing time," said Keith Lee, president and CEO of Advantest Americas Inc. "The value of this forum is evident in the record number of attendees and the amount of abstract submissions for both the V93000 as well as the T2000."

Advantest is offering the conference proceedings to customers, including the presented papers, on a USB memory stick. To order a copy, go to www.verigy.com/go/VOICE2012. Early planning for next year's VOICE conference is already underway. The steering committee for VOICE 2013, to be comprised of volunteer representatives from Advantest and its customers, will be formally announced in mid-2012.

About VOICE
VOICE is the leading conference for the growing international community of Advantest V93000 and T2000 customers and partners. It offers a unique opportunity to make users' semiconductor testing operations as effective as possible. Attendees gain and share valuable insights, build long-lasting relationships and learn what's new about Advantest's products and applications.

About Advantest Corporation
A world-class technology company, Advantest is the leading producer of automatic test equipment (ATE) for the semiconductor industry and a premier manufacturer of measuring instruments. Its leading-edge products are integrated into the most advanced semiconductor production lines in the world. The company also focuses on R&D for emerging markets that benefit from advancements in nanotech and terahertz technologies, and has recently introduced multi-vision metrology scanning electron microscopes essential to photomask manufacturing, and 3D imaging analysis tools to the pharmaceutical and transportation industries. Founded in Tokyo in 1954, Advantest established its first subsidiary in 1982, in the USA, and now has subsidiaries worldwide. More information is available at http://www.advantest.co.jp/.