Agilent and Multiprobe Provide Improved IC Test and Analysis Capability

Implications: Nanoscale probing directly at the transistor level for 65nm, 45nm and 32nm IC's has come of age. Agilent and MultiProbe's strategic partnership using Agilent's tester and MultiProbe's atomic force probe (AFP) system is posed to strengthen Agilent’s product offerings to include failure analysis probing. New challenges arise for device manufacturers when transitioning to a new technology node in the form of new materials and increased sensitivity during electrical characterization. This partnership provides the necessary tools and software to easily and rapidly debug the process. Initial sales slated for Asia and Japan could speed deployment of advanced memory types for the latest consumer products and solid-state drive (SSD) applications.

Analysis: Device complexities for the most advanced technologies require micro-probing of individual circuit features to accurately assess causes of device failure. Memory testing using automated test equipment (ATE) combined with built-in self-test features (BIST) on a device can identify a failing site but cannot access the actual failure to determine what went wrong in the processing or in some cases with an ESD event during the test itself. Atomic Force Probe (AFP) techniques are well suited for electrical characterization of sub-65nm nodes. New materials, strained-silicon, high-k gate dielectrics bring new challenges for the device manufacturer.  New material types bring new defect types. Some types of defects such as large particles can be identified by traditional, but time-consuming methods such as SEM or FIB imaging. When these methods fail to yield results, AFP has been found to be successful in numerous cases and is gaining rapid acceptance in the industry. Read more about MultiProbe and AFP.