FAILURE ANALYSIS OF INTEGRATED DEVICES BY SCANNING THERMAL MICROSCOPY(STHM)

High power densities dissipated in smaller and faster devices are lead ing to major thermal problems of semiconductor devices. The resulting local heat dissipation can induce deleterious effects like accelerated degradation or the destruction of the integrated circuits. Due to the shrinking feature sizes of modern devices and the small local extensi on of electrical failures the exact localization of these defects usin g established thermal failure analysis techniques like infrared thermo metry becoming more and more difficult. Temperature measurements on pa ssivated electronic devices with a sensitivity of 5 millikelvin by the use of a scanning thermal microscope (SThM) in contrast demonstrate t he possibilities to use this system as a tool for failure analysis. Ho t spot imaging with a spatial resolution of less than 150 nm, investig ations on the backside of ULSI devices as well as a comparison with co mplementary established analysis techniques are presented. (C) 1998 El sevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.