Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) is one of the highest-resolution physical-analysis techniques used in semiconductor failure analysis. It allows failure analysts to examine extremely small structural and material anomalies that may be impossible to characterize using optical microscopy or conventional SEM alone.
TEM works by transmitting a high-energy electron beam through an ...
Introduction to Semiconductor
Semiconductors have a small energy gap between the conduction and valance bands, and their conductivity is between insulators and conductors. At absolute zero temperature, semiconductor materials are pure insulators and gradually increase with temperature. Temperature and doping are the two mechanisms to manage the conductivity of semiconductors. Doping ...
Many important semiconductor package defects are completely hidden from optical inspection. A solder ball can contain a void. A bond wire can be broken inside an encapsulated package. A die-attach layer may contain large areas of voiding. A package substrate can contain an open trace, and an advanced package may have ...
Nanoprobing is an advanced electrical characterization and fault-localization technique used in semiconductor failure analysis to directly investigate individual transistors, contacts, vias and interconnect structures inside an integrated circuit.
Instead of relying only on package-level electrical measurements, nanoprobing allows extremely small conductive structures on a deprocessed semiconductor die to be contacted using ...
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce today announced immediate export restrictions on gallium, germanium, antimony, and super-hard materials to the United States. This action cites national security concerns and represents a significant escalation of trade tensions between the two countries. The restrictions follow recent U.S. actions to curb exports of semiconductor-related ...
Kaiserslautern, Germany – July 31, 2025 – Creonic GmbH, the leading provider of cutting-edge communications IP cores, announces the release of Version 6.0 of its DVB-S2X Demodulator IP core. This major update introduces powerful enhancements that expand the configurability and technical performance of one of Creonic’s most mature and widely ...
Kaiserslautern, Germany – May 21, 2025 – Creonic GmbH, a leading provider of ready-to-use IP cores for ASIC and FPGA applications, announces the release of its new oFEC (Open Forward Error Correction) codec IP core. The solution supports next-generation optical and high-speed communication systems and is now available in both ...
Emission Microscopy (EMMI) is an optical fault-localization technique used in semiconductor failure analysis to identify electrically active defects inside integrated circuits. Instead of physically opening individual circuit structures and searching for damage, emission microscopy detects extremely weak light generated while a semiconductor device is electrically operating or biased.
Abnormal photon emission ...
Lately, there’s been a lot of buzz about silicon photonics in the data center industry. What’s it all about? The ever-expanding digital universe is being driven by cloud computing, mobile data, video streaming, and Internet-of-Things (IoT). Today, it’s estimated that by end of 2016, more than 6 zettabytes (i.e., the ...
Package failure analysis is the systematic investigation of defects and failures originating within semiconductor packaging, interconnects, solder connections, die attach, bond wires, redistribution layers and other structures that connect the semiconductor die to the outside system.
A semiconductor device may fail electrical testing even though the silicon itself is functioning correctly. ...
