Failure analysis case studies on open defect

Failure analysis (FA) plays an important role in the integrated circuit industry. In FA cases, leakage and open are two main types of electrical faults. Optical beam induced resistance change (OBIRCH) technique is a very effective method in locating the leakage related defects or at least pointing out the abnormal leakage current path. But for open related defects, it seems that there is no common and effective method which can identify and locate the defect. In this paper, several open defect related failure analysis cases are presented. Some typical electrical and physical signatures of open fault and some analysis methods are discussed.