A laser-diode-based picosecond electrooptic prober for high-speed LSIs

Author

Shinagawa, Mitsuru ; Nagatsuma, Tadao

Author_Institution

NTT LSI Labs., Kanagawa, Japan

Volume

41

Issue

3

fYear

1992

fDate

6/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

375

Lastpage

380

Abstract

An external electrooptic (EO) prober to diagnose high-speed LSIs is described. The prober employs a GaAs probe tip as a proximity electric field sensor and a semiconductor laser diode as an optical sampling pulse source. Polarization detection optics of the prober are compactly implemented in a specially designed electrooptic sampling (EOS) module. Accurate and reproducible measurement is achieved with the module and a precise EO probe positioner. The minimum detectable voltage is 16 mV/√Hz, which is sufficient to measure an emitter-coupled logic (ECL) level signal of less than 1 V. The temporal resolution is 24 ps, which is now limited by the optical sampling pulsewidth. The system is successfully applied to measure waveforms of internal nodes of gigahertz-band LSIs

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; MMIC; emitter-coupled logic; gallium arsenide; integrated circuit testing; integrated logic circuits; large scale integration; laser beam applications; probes; semiconductor junction lasers; 1 V; 24 ps; ECL; GHz; GaAs probe tip; electrooptic sampling; emitter-coupled logic; optical sampling pulse source; optical sampling pulsewidth; picosecond electrooptic prober; polarisation detection optics; proximity electric field sensor; semiconductor laser diode; semiconductors; Gallium arsenide; High speed optical techniques; Lasers and electrooptics; Optical pulses; Optical sensors; Probes; Pulse measurements; Sampling methods; Semiconductor lasers; Stimulated emission;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Instrumentation and Measurement, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9456

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/19.153332

Filename

153332