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EBIC and XTEM Analysis of High Voltage SMOS Reliability Failures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Larry Rice
Larry Rice*
Affiliation:
Process and Materials Characterization Laboratory Digital DNA Lab, Motorola, Inc., 2200 W. Broadway Rd., Mesa, AZ 85202
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Abstract

Microscopists are faced with many challenges in locating and examining failure sites in the ever-shrinking semiconductor device. The site must be located using electrical characterization techniques like electron beam induced current (EBIC), photo emission microscopy (PEM) or liquid crystal (LC) and then cross-sectioned with a focused ion beam (FIB). Both PEM and LC require the semiconductor circuit to be running near operating conditions which has been observed to locally melt the area of interest, frequently destroying evidence of the failure mechanism. In contrast, EBIC typically can be accomplished at low or no applied voltage eliminating further damage to the circuit. EBIC has been applied to locate leakage sites in high voltage metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) electro static discharge (ESD) reliability failures. In addition to a brief revisit of the basic principles of EBIC and describing a technique to successfully cross section ‘hot spots’ for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation, focus will be placed on a case study of the reliability testing failure analysis of ESD power transistors using EBIC, SEM, focused ion beam (FIB), and XTEM.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 716: Symposium B – Silicon Materials-Processing, Characterization, and Reliability , 2002 , B13.2
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2002

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References

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