ELITE System Techniques

ELITE System techniques to improve failure analysis 

Learn more about the techniques that power the Thermo Scientific ELITE System and how they can help improve your failure analysis workflow.

Lock-in thermography to detect temperature variations

Steady-state and lock-in thermography are techniques that allow you to detect the temperature variations that indicate device failures. Of these methods, lock-in infrared (IR) thermography (LIT) offers much better signal-to-noise ratio, sensitivity, and feature resolution than steady-state thermography. LIT can be used in the failure analysis of semiconductor interconnects to locate line shorts, electrostatic discharge (ESD) defects, oxide damage, defective transistors and diodes, and device latch-ups.

 

Heat is periodically introduced by applying a pulsed bias to the device. The surface temperature is periodically measured with an IR camera. This data is captured by the ELITE System, which provides the localization information of the electrical faults by using the amplitude for the x-y location and using the phase to determine the z location.

Optical beam induced resistance change (OBIRCH) for electrical shorts detection

The ELITE System combines advanced lock-in thermography with 1340 nm OBIRCH for fast overall time-to-results and among the highest available sensitivity in detection of electrical shorts among a wide range of device under test (DUT) types.

 

LSM + OBIRCH on the ELITE System provide high-resolution imaging as well as validation/complementary detection of electrical shorts and related defects.

Laser scanning microscope (LSM)

LIT at 10x

Image was captured with a 10x objective for the ELITE System thermal camera.

LIT 10ᵡ, LSM 10ᵡ

LIT + LSM at 20x

Increasing the LSM objective to a 20ᵡ enables the engineer to better understand the defect location.

LIT 10ᵡ, LSM 20ᵡ

LIT + LSM at 100x

Increasing the LSM objective to 100ᵡ helps to pinpoint the thermal hot spot with a much clearer location within the device circuitry.

LIT 10ᵡ, LSM 100ᵡ

Image was captured with a 10x objective for the ELITE System thermal camera.

Adding the LSM with objective at 20x enables the engineer to better understand the defect location.

Increasing the LSM objective to 100x helps to pinpoint the thermal hot spot with a much clearer location within the device circuitry.

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.