A Novel Data Analysis Methodology in Failure Analysis

In Semiconductor IC failure analysis, failure localization is the most important step. However, as semiconductor circuits get more complex and devices trend to smaller dimension, failure localization becomes very difficult if failure is not caused during customer application, but by fab process. In this case, data analysis is recommended as a powerful addition to traditional failure analysis or yield analysis methods. This paper introduced a methodology of data analysis, which can build up correlation with distinctive view between several fields of data, such as electric analysis data, wafer process data. By this methodology, fail device related with fab process can be quickly localized. A real case of this methodology is presented.