Course 061 IC Reliability, Fault Isolation, and Failure Analysis

Mr. David Vallett, PeakSource Analytical, USA, and Dr. Kristof Croes, Group Leader Interconnect Reliability, Test and Modeling at imec, are teaching this 5-day course in IC Reliability, Fault Isolation, and Failure Analysis.

Quickly finding and eliminating defects in electronic devices is critical to all levels of the many businesses including ICs, PCBs, automotive, consumer, and IoT. This can directly affect technology development, manufacturing yield and time to market, reliability, serviceability, and client satisfaction.

Many factors contribute to the achievement of high yield and reliability and significantly impact product performance and cost. A thorough understanding of product and technology reliability principles and mechanisms of failure is essential.

A fundamental knowledge of defects and failure mechanisms enables the up-front achievement of these technology goals through circuit and layout design, device design, materials choices, process optimization, and thermo-mechanical considerations. Fault isolation, failure analysis, and materials analysis play a major role in the improvement of yield and reliability. Coordination of people in many disciplines is needed in order to achieve high yield and reliability. Each needs to understand the impact of their choices and methods on the final product. Unfortunately, very little formal university training exists in these critical areas of IC reliability, Fault Isolation, and failure analysis.