Light Emission to Time Resolved Emission For IC Debug and Failure Analysis

Light emission is routinely used to locate abnormal areas in failed ICs. Localization is done while the device is activated by a test pattern in a loop. Time Resolved Emission (TRE) has the potential to analyse faults by studying the emission of one area as a function of time. For failure analysis both techniques are valuable to identify where and when abnormal emission events have occurred. At low VDD, using only one or the other emission technique has shown some limitations. A solution, presented here, is to add a NIR PMT detector on an existing light emission microscope. Choice of detectors, performances and implementation are detailed on 120 and 90 nm structures.