High performance thermography with InGaAs photon counting camera

Light emission technique is well known to observe photon emission produced by transistor activity or by biased junctions. Constant progresses on InGaAs camera have driven low noise and high quantum efficiency. In this paper we show how these improvements give to InGaAs Infrared (IR) detector the ability to catch thermal activity coming from heating point of an integrated circuit (IC). We demonstrate the advantage of photon counting for these very low thermal emission fluxes. Experiments have been done with a specific Multi-Channel Plate (MCP) detector able to count position and date each photon incoming on detector field of view. We also demonstrate how the sub-nanosecond timing resolution open the door to thermal analysis at high magnification and high speed through a specific data treatment for Ultra Fast Thermal Propagation Analysis (UFTPA).