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Location of Current Carrying Faults in Integrated Circuits by Magnetic Force Microscopy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2011

A. Pu ,
A. Rahman ,
D.J. Thomson  and
G.E. Bridges
A. Pu
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 5V6
A. Rahman
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 5V6
D.J. Thomson
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 5V6
G.E. Bridges
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 5V6
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Abstract

In Integrated Circuits failure analysis excessive power supply current flowing into the IC is often used to indicate the presence of a faulty device. Location of these faulty devices can be problematic as the devices are often buried under several layers of conducting interconnect. By imaging the magnetic field produced by current flowing in an IC a faulty device can be located. In this paper we present experimental results on imaging current-carrying faults on integrated circuits using Magnetic force microscopy. We have experimentally determined that MFM is capable of measuring currents as small as 1 to 10 microampere on ICs in a 30 Hz bandwidth. We have carried out modeling calculations comparing the simulation results with experimental results using realistic MFM tip geometry. From these results we have devised a method to accurately locate the position of the internal current carrying faults from MFM images with micrometer uncertainty.

Keywords

MFMFault locationFailure Analysis
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 738: Symposium G – Spatially Resolved Characterization of Local Phenomena in Materials and Nanostructures , 2002 , G7.20
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2003

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References

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