High-Speed Electro-Optic Plasmonic Modulator for CMOS Non-Contact Wafer-Level Testing

Wafer-level testing is an important step for process and quality control of electronic chips in integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing which occurs before packaging. The process of wafer probing in its conventional contacting schemes, becomes more complicated as ICs move to smaller technology nodes and more compact designs, greatly increasing testing costs. Non-contact optical wafer probing can overcome physical probing complications, reducing costs, and increasing throughput and reliability. In this article, a CMOS compatible, broadband (22 GHz), small footprint (5 μm dia.) plasmonic electro-optic modulator of low insertion loss (4 dB) and wide optical working bandwidth (100 nm) is proposed and demonstrated as a potential solution for wafer-level optical testing. The device modulates in reflection an incident optical carrier emerging from an optical fiber in a non-contact arrangement, to work as a data output channel from the wafer. A modulation depth of over 2% is achieved which should be sufficient to meet the requirements of wafer-level testing. The device can be placed anywhere on wafer.