Consistency of optical data from PICA

This paper reports on an investigation of optical waveform "signatures" available from PICA. PICA collects photon emission data in time and space (t, x, y) simultaneously from all transistors in its 160 /spl mu/m field of view. This data if consistent can be used to determine process uniformity, non-catastrophic failures and degradation of transistors during reliability testing by comparing transistor optical waveform "signatures". As PICA is essentially a remote sensing technique it may predict failures early-on and thus accelerate reliability testing. Therefore, we have also investigated to see if this is observed.