Isolating failure location by using a dynamic emission microscopy system -a specific IddQ fail case study

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel failure analysis application of a dynamic emission microscopy system, which is implemented by photoemission microscopy coupled with a logic tester and corresponding software. The system not only filtered out spurious hot spots that would mislead analysts, but also caught valid emission spots on the failure block when very faint photoemission was caused by a small defect at the specific IddQ state. PFA (physical failure analysis) results are also revealed to show the fault isolation located by the dynamic emission microscopy, showing that the system is successful.