On July 1st, Toshiba Corporation's Semiconductor Company and Storage Products Company consolidated to form Semiconductor & Storage Products Company.This page describes reliability information of semiconductor products.

Significance of Failure Analysis

[As of April, 2011]

The causes and mechanisms of semiconductor device failures are complex due to the involvement of various reliability factors. Toshiba makes every effort to enforce reliability control in its semiconductor manufacturing process based on the thorough investigation and comprehensive analysis of factors affecting reliability as well as problems that occur in the manufacturing process and in the field. Still, it is impossible to completely eliminate all failures. When a failure does occur, failure analysis is performed to identify the cause and action is promptly taken.
Some failures occur in the manufacturing process, others are identified during evaluation and inspection, and others arise in the field as a result of the passage of time or the environment. Failure analysis is performed in all of these cases.
In addition to identifying failure causes and mechanisms, failure analysis also involves various chemical and physical analyses for extracting and controlling parameters affecting reliability, beginning from the initial stages of the manufacturing process. The results are applied to the identification of manufacturing process conditions and the development of process control techniques. This failure analysis has become an important technical field within semiconductor production technology.
To correctly identify failure causes and mechanisms, failure analysis must be performed using various analytical instruments in accordance with detailed analytical procedures. This requires analytical techniques and experience based on breadth of knowledge of physics and chemistry as well as a physical understanding of the semiconductor itself.
When performing failure analysis, the following points must be considered:

What are the symptoms of the failure, and when, where and under what circumstance did they appear? Is the failure repeatable? (Failure mode)
Where is the failure located and what kind of stress was applied at the location? (Failure mechanism)
Has the same failure occurred in the field? Is the probability of the failure predictable from the failure model? (Statistical analysis)
Appropriate corrective action must be taken to prevent failure recurrence by developing techniques for controlling manufacturing process parameters sensitive to reliability and providing feedback to the manufacturing process.