Pairing Laser Ablation and Xe Plasma FIB-SEM: An Approach for Precise End-Pointing in Large-Scale Physical Failure Analysis in the Semiconductor Industry

Abstract

In this work we present a large-volume workflow for fast failure analysis of microelectronic devices that combines a stand-alone ps-laser ablation tool with a SEM/Xe Plasma FIB system. In this synergy, the ps-laser is used to quickly remove large volumes of bulk material while the SEM/Xe Plasma FIB is used for precise end-pointing to the feature of interest and fine surface polishing after laser. The concept of having a stand-alone laser tool obeys the logic of maximizing productivity as both systems can work simultaneously and continuously. As application examples we first present a full workflow to prepare an artefact-free, delamination-free cross-section in an AMOLED mobile display. We also present applications examples that require cm-sized long cuts to cut through whole microelectronic devices, or removal of cubic-mm of material to prepare mm-sized cross-sections in packages. We discuss a way how to implement correlation data across the laser and FIBSEM platforms through SYNOPSYS Avalon SW allowing precise navigation to the area of interest using layout circuit overlays. We also show an example of image bitmap overlay to navigate across platforms and end-pointing.