Determination of temperature change inside IC packages during laser ablation of molding compound

In addition to chemical jet etch method, decapsulation performances of electronic packages for failure analysis are virtually enhanced using lasers. Nevertheless circuits inside package could be subjected to a local thermal elevation during the package ablation process. In this paper, we introduce an innovative technique to measure the thermal behavior of an encapsulated system in situ and in real time during laser decapsulation. Measurements of the heat elevation during ablation process in the three regions of interest for failure analysis are discussed: over IC, bonding and lead-frame.