Novel IR-OBIRCH application in gate oxide failure analysis

Emission microscopy (EMMI) is commonly used for fault isolation of gate oxide (gox) failures but often fails when the defect has infrared (IR) emission. Infrared optical beam induced resistance change (IR-OBIRCH) is introduced to do fault isolation of gox failures emitting in the infrared range. Compared to liquid crystal (LC) and fluorescent microthermal imaging (FMI), this technique is an easy method to obtain the location of IR emitting gox failures with high spatial resolution.