When you design and fabricate an IC, you want to make sure it will perform well under stress and will last as long as your customers require. How can you tell if it will? You can get characterization data from your foundry but it might not have all the data you want or when you want it. Or perhaps you have access to an IC characterization system in your lab. You can spend weeks or months trying to extract the information you need, one measurement at a time.
Ridgetop Group’s ProChek™ gets you the information you need faster than other systems by orders of magnitude. How? The ProChek test system – a PC connected to an instrument the size of an paperback book – controls and observes the ProChek test coupon you have fabricated in your process with your embedded circuit components (e.g., a large array of transistors with widths/lengths you specify). With patent-pending technology, the test system stresses devices-under-test (DUTs) on the test coupon. The built-in die-level structures control the voltage and the temperature for each device. (You can even put the test coupon in a radiation chamber.)
Major elements of the ProChek Process and Reliability Characterization System
In a matter of days or even hours, you have collected the reliability data for troublesome deep- submicron (DSM) effects including:
- Negative/positive bias temperature instability (NBTI/PBTI)
- Hot carrier (HC) effect
- Time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB)
- Stress migration (SM)
- Electromigration (EM)
- Threshold voltage (VT) shift
- Single-event radiation effects
- Total ionizing dose (TID) radiation effects
- Process mismatch
Ridgetop will help you design your test coupon. We have already done this on IBM 45 nm SOI, IBM 65 nm, TSMC 65 nm CMOS, and TowerJazz 180 nm SiGe, and we are constantly adding support for new processes. Let Ridgetop help you gather the process characterization you need now. Contact info@ridgetopgroup.com for more information.
ProChek Process and Reliability Characterization System: Control and Data Flow
ProChek Host Controller software screen for TDDB measurement
Features
- ProChek targets reliability concerns of deep submicron nanotechnology CMOS processes
- Test Coupon has small chip size, as small as .16 mm2
- Fully programmable test conditions cover DC and AC stress cases
- 32-1024 (or even more) devices can be tested simultaneously
- Internal local heaters test temperatures up to 325 °C
- Easy-to-use software GUI (Host Controller) includes data processing capabilities
Advantages
- Test Coupon is fully synthesizable for easy porting to multiple processes
- Small Test Coupon size minimizes fabrication expenses
- Test throughput of ProChek is much higher than in any other CMOS reliability test solutions
- Large array of DUTs supports rapid characterization for all your critical devices
- ProChek test system is compact, inexpensive, and easy to use
Benefits
- ProChek saves you weeks of characterization time
- Major DSM degradation effects can be characterized with minimal resource expenditures
- You can economically determine which process best suits your application
- Expensive ATE systems are not needed
