Steady-state sinusoidal thermal characterization at chip level by internal infrared-laser deflection

A new approach is reported for thermally characterizing microelectronic devices and integrated circuits under a steady-state sinusoidal regime by internal infrared-laser deflection (IIR-LD). It consists of extracting the amplitude and phase Bode plots of the temperature profile inside the chip (depth-resolved measurements in the frequency domain). As a consequence, not only are the IIR-LD performances significantly improved (accuracy, robustness to noise, control of boundary conditions and heat flux confinement) but also the direct temperature measurement is feasible when thin regions are inspected and thermal parameters can be easily extracted (thermal diffusivity). In order to show the efficiency of this technique, a thermal test chip (TTC) is used. The TTC is thermally excited by imposing a cosine-like voltage waveform. As a result, a vertical temperature profile inside the die is obtained depending on the heating frequency. Repeating this procedure at several frequencies, the frequency response of the chip internal temperature profile is derived. By comparing the experimental results with the model predictions, good agreement is achieved. This technique allows evaluation of the thermal behaviour at the chip level; also it could be useful for failure analysis.

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