Electricity: measuring and testing – Fault detecting in electric circuits and of electric components – Of individual circuit component or element
Patent
1995-02-14
1996-12-10
Karlsen, Ernest F.
Electricity: measuring and testing
Fault detecting in electric circuits and of electric components
Of individual circuit component or element
324758, G01R 3102, G01R 1067
Patent
active
055834469
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention is utilized for semiconductor research and manufacture, and it relates in particular to techniques for measuring the operating state of high-speed integrated electronic circuits. It is utilized for the observation and measurement of extremely small, precise structures, and as a precision measuring instrument capable of measuring the electrical characteristics of electric circuits on which extremely minute mechanical structures have been formed, and where the spacing between adjacent circuits is extremely small. This invention is suited for utilization in semiconductor device manufacture and research, and it has been developed in order to make electrical measurements of the operating state of high-speed integrated electronic circuits.
BACKGROUND TECHNOLOGY
The frequency of the signals that are dealt with in the field of electronics has recently reached 250 GHz, and the current status of high-speed electrical measuring technology is that the methods employed to observe these high-speed electric waveforms have not kept up with technical progress. Furthermore, advances in the miniaturization of circuit elements have led to a situation in which neither the temporal resolution nor the spatial resolution of electric measuring instruments has kept up with current technical progress.
An established and representative means of observing high-speed phenomena such as the high-speed operating state of microcircuit elements is the sampling oscilloscope. In addition, studies have recently been made of EO sampling, a technique which utilizes the electro-optic effect in electro-optic crystals (see Kamiya, T. and Takahashi, M., "Electro-optic sampling using semiconductor lasers," Oyo Butsuri, Vol. 61, No. 1, p. 30, 1992; and Nagatsuma, T., "Measurement of high-speed devices and integrated circuits using electro-optic sampling technique," IEICE Trans. Electron., Vol.E-76C, No. 1, January 1993). Given that it has become comparatively easy in the field of laser technology to obtain optical pulses in the subpicosecond range, optical sampling techniques seek to use such laser pulses for sampling electric signals. These techniques are faster than conventional electronic measurements, and can provide direct, non-contact measurements of electric potential at a desired point on a circuit under test, without leading out the signal. In other words, with this technique the electric pulses used for sampling in a sampling oscilloscope are replaced with optical pulses.
Another method for making high spatial resolution direct measurements of electric potential at a desired point is the electron-beam tester (see Plows, G., "Electron-beam probing," Semiconductors and Semimetals, Vol. 28 (Measurement of high-speed signals in solid-state devices), Chap. 6, p. 336, Ed. Willardson, R. K. and Beer, Albert C., Academic Press, 1990). Electron-beam testers are a powerful means of observing electric signals inside ICs for diagnosis and analysis of IC operation.
Scanning tunnelling microscopes and atomic force microscopes are among the devices which have recently undergone rapid development and come into widespread use as instruments for making high spatial resolution observations of the surface shape of objects under test. Because these devices are able to provide three-dimensional images at ultra-high spatial resolutions corresponding to the atomic scale, they are very well suited to the observation of the surface shape of semiconductor integrated circuits and the like. Bloom et al. have recently proposed a method for measuring the electric potential of an object under test using an atomic force microscope (AFM) (see Hou, A. S., Ho, F. and Bloom, D. M., "Picosecond electrical sampling using a scanning force microscope," Electronics Letters, Vol. 28, No. 25, p. 2302, 1992). In this method, a high-speed electronic circuit is used as the object being measured by an ordinary AFM, and a repulsive or attractive force is produced between the AFM probe and this object in accordance with the electric potential at the point
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Iwaoka Hideto
Kasahara Yukio
Miura Akira
Sugiyama Tadashi
Takeuchi Koichiro
Karlsen Ernest F.
Kobert Russell M.
Teratec Corporation
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