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.

Si Chip Backside Analysis Using an Infrared Emission Microscope (IR EMS)

[As of April, 2011]

Purpose
To find out the cause of function failure during board mounting process
Analysis and Result
Light emission was detected from the Si chip backside when it was observed after mirror polishing using an IR EMS (Figure 1).
Oxide film breakdown in the MOS capacitor was confirmed during observation after de-encapsulation using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) (Figure 2).
Failure mechanism is oxide film breakdown due to ESD

This is [Figure 1 Overlapping of Light Emission and Pattern Images (Emission Location Indicated by Arrow)].

Figure 1 Overlapping of Light Emission and Pattern Images (Emission Location Indicated by Arrow)

This is [Figure 2 Oxide Film Surface after De-Encapsulation (SEM Image)].

Figure 2 Oxide Film Surface after De-Encapsulation (SEM Image)

Note: Bibliography. Etoh, Okazoe, Nagakubo; "Identification Study of Breakdown Location of Semiconductor Using IR EMS", IEICE Technical Report R91-33 (1991)