Application of IR-OBIRCH to the failure analysis of CMOS integrated circuits

Author

Soon, Lim ; Ling, Dawn Tan Mei ; Kuan, Marcus ; Yee, Kwong Weng ; Cheong, Dan ; Zhang, Galor

Author_Institution

Failure Anal. Group, Syst.-On-Silicon Manuf. Co., Singapore, Singapore

fYear

2003

fDate

7-11 July 2003

Firstpage

86

Lastpage

91

Abstract

IR-OBIRCH (Infra-Red Optical Beam Induced Resistance Change) is a revolutionary new method for the localization of leakage current paths and detection of abnormal resistance in interconnects of ULSI devices. Application of this technique to the actual failure analysis of 0.25 μm, 0.22 μm & 0.18 μm CMOS integrated circuits in volume production was demonstrated. It was found that IR-OBIRCH is a powerful fault isolation technique. Process defects detectable using this technique in our experience are: 1) Short circuits due to interconnect bridging. 2) Short circuits due to poly-gate bridging or poly-gate to source/drain bridging. 3) Resistive Vias due to the presence of micro-voids or residue at via/metal interface.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; ULSI; failure analysis; laser beam effects; leakage currents; voids (solid); 0.18 micron; 0.22 micron; 0.25 micron; CMOS integrated circuits; ULSI devices; defects; failure analysis; infrared optical beam induced resistance change; interconnect bridging; leakage current; metal interface; microvoids; polygate bridging; CMOS integrated circuits; Circuit faults; Failure analysis; Infrared detectors; Integrated circuit interconnections; Leak detection; Leakage current; Optical beams; Production; Ultra large scale integration;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits, 2003. IPFA 2003. Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on the

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7722-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IPFA.2003.1222744

Filename

1222744