Infrared laser imaging for circuit board and IC failure detection

This paper describes research and development efforts in the use of infrared (IR) laser beams for detecting failures in integrated circuits resident on printed circuit boards. This work involves taking advantage of the transparency of the silicon substrate of ICs to radiation in the near infrared (NIR) spectrum to devise a non-invasive method for imaging the component circuitry of the IC. The implication is that a means to see into the physical structure of an integrated circuit can be created by using lasers tuned to these wavelengths. While the silicon substrate is transparent to the laser, the circuit paths and devices embedded within the substrate are readily visible since their metallic composition is opaque to laser energy at this wavelength. A laser test fixture consisting of a 1064 nm continuous wave laser, CCD camera, and image acquisition board is used to generate images from flip-chip integrated circuits. Multiresolution image processing techniques are then applied to the resulting images to identify potential defects.