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 ...
The semiconductor industry went through several stages of evolution, beginning with the Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) Field-Effect Transistor (FET) which was first proposed by Lilienfeld and Heil in the 1930s, moving on to bipolar in the 1950s and N-channel metal-oxide semiconductor (NMOS) in 1970s, and ultimately becoming the standard in ...
Many semiconductor failure-analysis techniques require direct access to structures that are hidden inside an IC package. The semiconductor die, bond pads, bond wires and other critical components may be completely covered by epoxy molding compound or other packaging materials. Before these structures can be examined using techniques such as optical microscopy, emission ...
Faraday Technology Corporation (TWSE: 3035), a leading ASIC design service and IP provider, today announced that it has won and delivered several factory automation (FA) related ASIC projects, supporting real-time Ethernet, EtherCAT, Profibus, and PLC controllers. In each case, Faraday employs its value-added ASIC and IP customization service for power-performance ...
IC short circuit failure analysis is the process of determining where an unintended electrical connection exists inside a semiconductor device, package or interconnect structure and identifying the physical defect that created the short.
A short circuit may initially appear only as excessive supply current, unexpectedly low resistance between two nodes, abnormal ...
When a semiconductor device fails, the visible damage is not necessarily the root cause. A damaged metal line, cracked package, leaking transistor or burned bond wire may be the final result of a sequence of events rather than the original problem. The purpose of the semiconductor failure analysis process is therefore to ...
OBIRCH (Optical Beam Induced Resistance Change) is a laser-based fault-localization technique used in semiconductor failure analysis to identify electrically abnormal regions such as resistive shorts, leakage paths, defective vias and interconnect problems.
The technique works by scanning a focused laser across an electrically biased semiconductor device. Local laser heating changes the ...
PHIX B.V. of Enschede, The Netherlands, is a Dutch packaging foundry that assembles their customers’ photonic integrated circuits into complete modules. As these modules evolve from initial prototypes into mature products, the manufacturing volumes become much larger and a higher level of automation is required. This aspect of photonic device ...
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 ...
When an integrated circuit fails, one of the first questions is: How is the device failing electrically?
A chip may exhibit excessive leakage current, a short circuit, an open connection, abnormal supply current, a parametric shift or a complete functional failure. Before engineers physically cut into the device, they usually want to ...
