Burned Metal Phenomenon: A Study of Critical Factors and Their Effects on IC Devices during Parallel Lapping

P. Batteate and J.Y. Liao
Nvidia, US

Keywords: IC failure analysis, parallel lapping

Abstract:
Parallel lapping is widely employed in destructive physical analysis on semiconductor integrated circuits, to reveal defects isolated by electrical failure analysis tools and techniques. A clean sample surface is critical so that the analysts can accurately identify the real defects and not be misled by anomalies possibly introduced during deprocessing. Burned metal has been identified as one type of failure mechanism, caused by electrically overstressing the device. Its presence as failure mechanism is usually validated by electrical and circuit analysis. However, in some cases additional burned metal was also observed on areas unrelated to suspect locations. To understand this phenomenon, we carefully examined the procedure of parallel lapping and conducted a series of experiments to determine the cause and effects of critical factors on IC devices during parallel lapping.

Nanotech 2004 Conference Technical Program Abstract