In situ high-resolution thermal microscopy on integrated circuits

Abstract

The miniaturization of metal tracks in integrated circuits (ICs) can cause abnormal heat dissipation, resulting in electrostatic discharge, overvoltage breakdown, and other unwanted issues. Unfortunately, locating areas of abnormal heat dissipation is limited either by the spatial resolution or imaging acquisition speed of current thermal analytical techniques. A rapid, non-contact approach to the thermal imaging of ICs with sub-μm resolution could help to alleviate this issue. In this work, based on the intensity of the temperature-dependent two-photon fluorescence (TPF) of Rhodamine 6G (R6G) material, we developed a novel fast and non-invasive thermal microscopy with a sub-μm resolution. Its application to the location of hotspots that may evolve into thermally induced defects in ICs was also demonstrated. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to present high-resolution 2D thermal microscopic images of ICs, showing the generation, propagation, and distribution of heat during its operation. According to the demonstrated results, this scheme has considerable potential for future in situ hotspot analysis during the optimization stage of IC development.

Lack of Thermogram Sharpness as Component of Thermographic Temperature Measurement Uncertainty Budget

“…The value τ a was attributed to the normal distribution based on the Central Limit Theorem. Value (τ a ) was obtained by means of (20). The obtained values c and contributions of uncertainty u(τ a ) are presented in Table 2.…”

“…Therefore, the sharpness adjustment issue becomes particularly visible in the case of cameras which do not have such a system. These are cameras used for research purposes, e.g., in microscopic thermography [20][21][22].…”

The Solution for the Thermographic Measurement of the Temperature of a Small Object

“…In normal operation, most electronic components reach a certain temperature value, which can be monitored by analyzing thermograms taken at specific intervals [ 11 ]. In the case of damage to a specific component, its temperature changes, which is reflected in the recorded thermogram [ 22 , 23 , 24 ]. Correct diagnosis of such damage to equipment is possible only if the obtained thermograms are correctly interpreted and the influence of the disturbing factors is taken into account in advance.…”

Composite polymer membranes for laser-induced fluorescence thermometry

“…Water and ethanol based solutions are the most common choices for temperature measurements in liquid samples, although other solvents such as sodium carbonate buffer solutions have also shown to perform well [5,6,11,12]. For temperature mapping of dry surfaces, RhB can also be incorporated into polymer matrices to fabricate temperature sensitive films [9,10,[13][14][15]. In particular, integration of RhB into polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is of interest because of its dominant role in microfluidic and lab-on a-chip platforms [16].…”