Study on SRAM soft failure using planar-view transmission electron microscopy techniques

Author

Liu, P. ; Li, K. ; Li, Y. ; Chen, C.Q. ; Er, E. ; Teong, J.

Author_Institution

Failure Anal. Dept., Chartered Semicond. Mfg Ltd., Singapore

fYear

2008

fDate

7-11 July 2008

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

5

Abstract

Soft failure in static random access memory (SRAM), where there are several mechanisms related to it, is a kind of major obstruction to improve the yield. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a powerful failure analysis tool, which has a high spatial resolution and is widely used in IC failure analysis with the shrinkage of integrated circuit to a nano-level transistor. Planar-view TEM techniques have great advantages in finding failure location and mechanism. In this paper, two kinds of soft failure root causes are identified by the planar-view TEM techniques.

Keywords

SRAM chips; failure analysis; integrated circuit reliability; transmission electron microscopy; IC failure analysis; SRAM soft failure; TEM; failure analysis tool; failure location; integrated circuit shrinkage; nanolevel transistor; planar-view transmission electron microscopy techniques; static random access memory; transmission electron microscopy; Atomic force microscopy; Circuits; Failure analysis; Optical microscopy; Page description languages; Random access memory; Scanning electron microscopy; Testing; Transmission electron microscopy; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits, 2008. IPFA 2008. 15th International Symposium on the

Conference_Location

Singapore

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2039-1

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-2040-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IPFA.2008.4588194

Filename

4588194