Integrated time dependent dielectric breakdown reliability testing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9557369-B2
Application number	US-201213530782-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 22, 2012
Priority date	Jun 22, 2012
Publication date	Jan 31, 2017
Grant date	Jan 31, 2017

Abstract

Methods for reliability testing include applying a stress voltage to a device under test (DUT); measuring a leakage current across the DUT; triggering measurement of optical emissions from the DUT based on the timing of the measurement of the leakage current; and correlating measurements of the leakage current with measurements of the optical emissions to determine a time and location of a defect occurrence within the DUT by locating instances of increased noise in the leakage current that correspond in time with instances of increased optical emissions.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for reliability testing, comprising:
applying a stress to a device under test (DUT);
measuring an electrical characteristic of the DUT;
triggering measurement of an optical characteristic of the DUT based on a timing of the measurement of the electrical characteristic; and
correlating the leakage current with the optical emissions using a processor to determine a time and location of a defect occurrence within the DUT by locating instances of increased noise in the leakage current that correspond in time with instances of increased optical emissions.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein correlating includes convolving a vector formed from leakage current measurements with a vector formed from optical emission measurements.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein correlating includes calculating the maximum value of the convolution as

Corr
=

max
(

∑
j

⁢

E
⁡

(
j
)

⁢

I
⁡

(

k
+
1
-
j

)

)

,

where k=1, . . . , m+n−1, m is the number of electrical measurements, n is a number of optical measurements, E is the optical measurement vector, and I is the electrical measurement vector.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the electrical measurement is repeated periodically.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising halting said stress, electrical measurement, and optical measurement, based on said correlating.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein correlating further comprises segmenting an image of the DUT and determining a maximum emission intensity for each segment to localize emissions.

7. A method for reliability testing, comprising:
applying a stress voltage to a device under test (DUT);
periodically measuring a leakage current across the DUT to form an electrical measurement vector;
triggering measurement of optical emissions from the DUT based on the timing of the measurement of leakage current, and
correlating the leakage current with the optical emissions using a processor to determine a time and location of a defect occurrence within the DUT by:
segmenting an image of the DUT and determining a maximum emission intensity for each segment to localize emissions and form an optical emission measurement vector;
convolving the electrical measurement vector with the optical measurement vector to form a convolved vector; and
determining the maximum value in the convolved vector.

Assignees

• Chen Jifeng
• Pfeiffer Dirk
• Shaw Thomas M
• Song Peilin
• Stellari Franco
• IBM

Inventors

• Chen Jifeng
• Pfeiffer Dirk
• Shaw Thomas M
• Song Peilin
• Stellari Franco

Classifications

• G01R31/2879 Primary

  related to electrical aspects, e.g. to voltage or current supply or stimuli or to electrical loads · CPC title

• G01R31/2858

  Measuring of material aspects, e.g. electro-migration [EM], hot carrier injection · CPC title

• G01R31/2855 Primary

  Environmental, reliability or burn-in testing · CPC title

• G01R31/311

  of integrated circuits {(G01R31/31728 takes precedence)} · CPC title

• G01R31/281

  Specific types of tests or tests for a specific type of fault, e.g. thermal mapping, shorts testing (G01R31/2818 takes precedence) · CPC title