Experimental evaluation of on-chip measurement of charge transfer by X-rays

A new on-chip testing technique is proposed and experimentally evaluated. It is based on the diffraction of highly monochromatic and collimated X-rays of dimensions of ~1 μm from single crystal semiconductors. Small differences in electronic distribution in FETs, including 2 DEG HEMTs, CCD, or many other charge transfer concepts of monolithic integrated circuits can yield measurable X-ray intensity changes. A calculation of the sensitivity shows that charges in resonant quantum structures can also produce detectable scattering variations if there are around 500 electrons in a well of dimensions 500×500 nm ². The new technique is therefore relevant for future highly packaged ICs with near-sub-micrometre dimensions