Many semiconductor-based circuits or systems have designs in which there is a need for multiple components that are matched or otherwise similar with one another in terms of one of more component characteristics or features, including (for example) electrical parameters or characteristics. For example, multi-path amplifier circuits may employ multiple amplifier circuit sections that, to achieve desired performance of the overall amplifier circuit, should be substantially identical in some aspects of electrical performance. One manner of achieving such semiconductor-based circuits or systems with multiple matched or otherwise-similar components is to fabricate such circuits or systems using multiple dice that respectively serve as the multiple matched components, respectively, where the multiple dice are obtained during fabrication from the same wafer or closely-related semiconductor wafers.
However, the use of multiple dice from the same wafer or closely-related wafers does not necessarily guarantee that the multiple dice or components provided thereby will exhibit characteristics or features that are sufficiently matched or similar. To the contrary, wafer processing often produces dice that (or have films that) vary significantly physically, such as in thickness, or have significant gradients, such as with respect to chemical vapor deposition. Consequently, components provided by different dice formed on the same wafer or closely-related wafers will often naturally exhibit significantly different electrical parameters or other characteristics or features relative to one another. Indeed, wafer variations that can significantly affect component characteristics and features occur not only on a lot-to-lot basis, or on a wafer-to-wafer basis, but also even within a single wafer.
Consequently, to achieve semiconductor-based circuits or systems with multiple components that are sufficiently matched or similar using dice provided from the same wafer or closely-related wafers, it is important that the dice be selected and implemented in a manner that enhances the likelihood that the dice, and components provided thereby, will exhibit the desired characteristics or features. To some extent, such selection and implementation naturally involves some discarding of certain dice because the dice are not sufficiently matched or similar relative to other dice, or because certain dice have characteristics or features that render those dice unusable. Yet it nevertheless is desirable when manufacturing semiconductor-based circuits and systems by way of dice provided from wafers that the proportion of potentially-usable dice on the wafers that are implemented be increased, and that the proportion of potentially-usable dice on the wafers that are discarded be decreased.
For at least these reasons, therefore, it would be advantageous if new or improved methods or systems could be developed for assembling, fabricating, or otherwise achieving semiconductor-based circuits or systems using multiple dice to provide multiple components having one or more matched or similar characteristics or features, in manners that enhanced the proportion of potentially-usable dice that were implemented and not discarded so as to achieve higher efficiency or lower cost objectives, or that met one or more other objectives.