IDVP (Intra-Die Variation Probe) for System-On-Chip (SoC) Infant Mortality screen

Used materials, oxides thicknesses, and ultra-small channel lengths are contributors to the impact of well known reliability issue such as NBTI (Negative Bias Temperature Instability). This paper describes a case study using an Intra-Die Variation Probe (IDVP) test to screen out Infant Mortality (IM) failures. The approach is pursued by applying the learning of yield and reliability on 45 nm process technology for the System-On-A-Chip (SoC) products. Using this approach, the IDVP test is determined as a better reliability screen than the Electrical Test (E-Test), due to poor E-Test coverage in the Gross Failure Area (GFA). It has been revealed that the GFA only becomes visible after Burn In stress and we found that the IM failures are a mixture of post-stress Automated Test Equipment (ATE) failures. This approach will produce an outgoing level of quality that enables the 45 nm SoC products to reduce burn-in sampling in the production flow and will be proliferated to the 32 nm process technology products.