Laser terahertz emission microscope for inspecting electrical failures in integrated circuits

The inspection and fault analysis of semiconductor devices has become a critical issue with increasing demands for quality and reliability in circuits as stated in L. A. Krauss et al. (2001), K. Nikawa (2002) and K. Nikawa et al. (2003). Recently, we have developed a laser-terahertz (THz) emission microscope (LTEM) that can be applied for the noncontact and nondestructive inspection of the electrical faults in circuits presented in K. Nikawa et al. (2003). The LTEM can image the amplitude profile of the THz wave emitted by scanning the sample with femtosecond (fs) laser pulses. The amplitude of the THz emission generated by the transient photocurrent is proportional to the local electric field at the laser-irradiated area according to T. Kowa et al. (2003). Therefore, the LTEM image of the semiconductor device while it operates reflects the electric field distribution in the chip. By comparing the LTEM image of a damaged chip with that of a normal one, we can localize the electrical faults. In this work, we report experimental results on a biased 8-bit microprocessor, as well as unbiased MOSFETs embedded in a test element group (TEG).