Rapid diagnostics of ASIC circuit marginalities using dynamic laser stimulation

The silicon debug process is increasingly important in producing profitable ICs, but faces increasing challenges. In this paper, the authors report the use of a powerful optical probing technique, dynamic laser stimulation (DLS), to rapidly localize marginal circuits that were causing yield loss on two high-performance ASIC chips. The probing results were obtained without detailed information about the circuits in question and without requiring automated test equipment (ATE) for the device stimulation.