Defect Finding for Power-Related Failure Due to Internal Circuitry Issue

Nowadays Very Large-Scale Integration (VLSI) technology is moving to sub-90 nm nodes, and power signal problems still become one of the most common issues. Due to the geometry shrinking and increase in circuit complexity, the failure mechanism becomes more complex. Hence, different methodologies and techniques were implemented to successfully localize the defect. In this paper, all of the discussed cases are related to the faulty internal signal. Hence, the typical methodologies and techniques are less effective to localize the defect. Thus, the combination of EOFM/EOP and micro-probing on internal signal traces enhanced fault localization of complex power leakage failure where the defect resided in the internal power management circuitry instead of causing direct power supply abnormality. Finally, physical FA revealed the cause of the failure. The defect found is usually caused by the imperfection of the metal line either open metal or shorted to another metal line.