Wafer-Level Testing and Test During Burn-In for Integrated Circuits


Book Description

Wafer-level testing refers to a critical process of subjecting integrated circuits and semiconductor devices to electrical testing while they are still in wafer form. Burn-in is a temperature/bias reliability stress test used in detecting and screening out potential early life device failures. This hands-on resource provides a comprehensive analysis of these methods, showing how wafer-level testing during burn-in (WLTBI) helps lower product cost in semiconductor manufacturing. Engineers learn how to implement the testing of integrated circuits at the wafer-level under various resource constraints. Moreover, this unique book helps practitioners address the issue of enabling next generation products with previous generation testers. Practitioners also find expert insights on current industry trends in WLTBI test solutions.




On-Wafer Microwave Measurements and De-embedding


Book Description

This new authoritative resource presents the basics of network analyzer measurement equipment and troubleshooting errors involved in the on-wafer microwave measurement process. This book bridges the gap between theoretical and practical information using real-world practices that address all aspects of on-wafer passive device characterization in the microwave frequency range up to 60GHz. Readers find data and measurements from silicon integrated passive devices fabricated and tested in advance CMOS technologies. Basic circuit equations, terms and fundamentals of time and frequency domain analysis are covered. This book also explores the basics of vector network analyzers (VNA), two port S-parameter measurement routines, signal flow graphs, network theory, error models and VNA calibrations with the use of calibration standards.




Layout Techniques for Integrated Circuit Designers


Book Description

This book provides complete step-by-step guidance on the physical implementation of modern integrated circuits, showing you their limitations and guiding you through their common remedies. The book describes today’s manufacturing techniques and how they impact design rules. You will understand how to build common high frequency devices such as inductors, capacitors and T-coils, and will also learn strategies for dealing with high-speed routing both on package level and on-chip applications. Numerous algorithms implemented in Python are provided to guide you through how extraction, netlist comparison and design rule checkers can be built. The book also helps you unravel complexities that effect circuit design, including signal integrity, matching, IR drop, parasitic impedance and more, saving you time in addressing these effects directly. You will also find detailed descriptions of software tools used to analyze a layout database, showing you how devices can be recognized and connectivity accurately assessed. The book removes much of fog that often hides the inner workings of layout related software tools and helps you better understand: the physics of advanced nodes, high speed techniques used in modern integrated technologies, and the inner working of software used to analyze layout databases. This is an excellent resource for circuit designers implementing a schematic in a layout database, especially those involved in deep submicron designs, as well as layout designers wishing to deepen their understanding of modern layout rules.




Labs on Chip


Book Description

Labs on Chip: Principles, Design and Technology provides a complete reference for the complex field of labs on chip in biotechnology. Merging three main areas— fluid dynamics, monolithic micro- and nanotechnology, and out-of-equilibrium biochemistry—this text integrates coverage of technology issues with strong theoretical explanations of design techniques. Analyzing each subject from basic principles to relevant applications, this book: Describes the biochemical elements required to work on labs on chip Discusses fabrication, microfluidic, and electronic and optical detection techniques Addresses planar technologies, polymer microfabrication, and process scalability to huge volumes Presents a global view of current lab-on-chip research and development Devotes an entire chapter to labs on chip for genetics Summarizing in one source the different technical competencies required, Labs on Chip: Principles, Design and Technology offers valuable guidance for the lab-on-chip design decision-making process, while exploring essential elements of labs on chip useful both to the professional who wants to approach a new field and to the specialist who wants to gain a broader perspective.




Acoustic Wave and Electromechanical Resonators


Book Description

This groundbreaking book provides you with a comprehensive understanding of FBAR (thin-film bulk acoustic wave resonator), MEMS (microelectomechanical system), and NEMS (nanoelectromechanical system) resonators. For the first time anywhere, you find extensive coverage of these devices at both the technology and application levels. This practical reference offers you guidance in design, fabrication, and characterization of FBARs, MEMS and NEBS. It discusses the integration of these devices with standard CMOS (complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor) technologies, and their application to sensing and RF systems. Moreover, this one-stop resource looks at the main characteristics, differences, and limitations of FBAR, MEMS, and NEMS devices, helping you to choose the right approaches for your projects. Over 280 illustrations and more than 130 equations support key topics throughout the book.




RFID-Enabled Sensor Design and Applications


Book Description

RFID (radio-frequency identification) is an emerging communication system technology and one of the most rapidly growing segments of todayOCOs automatic identification data collection industry. This cutting-edge resource offers you a solid understanding of the basic technical principles and applications of RFID-enabled sensor systems. The book provides you with a detailed description of RFID and itOCOs operation, along with a fundamental overview of sensors and wireless sensor networks. Moreover, this practical reference gives you step-by-step guidance on how to design RFID-enabled sensors that form a wireless sensor network. You also find detailed coverage of state-of OCothe-art RFID/sensor technology and worldwide applications.




Highly Integrated Microfluidics Design


Book Description

The recent development of microfluidics has lead to the concept of lab-on-a-chip, where several functional blocks are combined into a single device that can perform complex manipulations and characterizations on the microscopic fluid sample. However, integration of multiple functionalities on a single device can be complicated. This a cutting-edge resource focuses on the crucial aspects of integration in microfluidic systems. It serves as a one-stop guide to designing microfluidic systems that are highly integrated and scalable. This practical book covers a wide range of critical topics, from fabrication techniques and simulation tools, to actuation and sensing functional blocks and their inter-compatibility. This unique reference outlines the benefits and drawbacks of different approaches to microfluidic integration and provides a number of clear examples of highly integrated microfluidic systems.




Lab-on-a-chip


Book Description

HereOCOs a groundbreaking book that introduces and discusses the important aspects of lab-on-a-chip, including the practical techniques, circuits, microsystems, and key applications in the biomedical, biology, and life science fields. Moreover, this volume covers ongoing research in lab-on-a-chip integration and electric field imaging. Presented in a clear and logical manner, the book provides you with the fundamental underpinnings of lab-on-a-chip, presents practical results, and brings you up to date with state-of-the-art research in the field. This unique resource is supported with over 160 illustrations that clarify important topics throughout.




Thermal Issues in Testing of Advanced Systems on Chip


Book Description

Many cutting-edge computer and electronic products are powered by advanced Systems-on-Chip (SoC). Advanced SoCs encompass superb performance together with large number of functions. This is achieved by efficient integration of huge number of transistors. Such very large scale integration is enabled by a core-based design paradigm as well as deep-submicron and 3D-stacked-IC technologies. These technologies are susceptible to reliability and testing complications caused by thermal issues. Three crucial thermal issues related to temperature variations, temperature gradients, and temperature cycling are addressed in this thesis. Existing test scheduling techniques rely on temperature simulations to generate schedules that meet thermal constraints such as overheating prevention. The difference between the simulated temperatures and the actual temperatures is called temperature error. This error, for past technologies, is negligible. However, advanced SoCs experience large errors due to large process variations. Such large errors have costly consequences, such as overheating, and must be taken care of. This thesis presents an adaptive approach to generate test schedules that handle such temperature errors. Advanced SoCs manufactured as 3D stacked ICs experience large temperature gradients. Temperature gradients accelerate certain early-life defect mechanisms. These mechanisms can be artificially accelerated using gradient-based, burn-in like, operations so that the defects are detected before shipping. Moreover, temperature gradients exacerbate some delay-related defects. In order to detect such defects, testing must be performed when appropriate temperature-gradients are enforced. A schedule-based technique that enforces the temperature-gradients for burn-in like operations is proposed in this thesis. This technique is further developed to support testing for delay-related defects while appropriate gradients are enforced. The last thermal issue addressed by this thesis is related to temperature cycling. Temperature cycling test procedures are usually applied to safety-critical applications to detect cycling-related early-life failures. Such failures affect advanced SoCs, particularly through-silicon-via structures in 3D-stacked-ICs. An efficient schedule-based cycling-test technique that combines cycling acceleration with testing is proposed in this thesis. The proposed technique fits into existing 3D testing procedures and does not require temperature chambers. Therefore, the overall cycling acceleration and testing cost can be drastically reduced. All the proposed techniques have been implemented and evaluated with extensive experiments based on ITC’02 benchmarks as well as a number of 3D stacked ICs. Experiments show that the proposed techniques work effectively and reduce the costs, in particular the costs related to addressing thermal issues and early-life failures. We have also developed a fast temperature simulation technique based on a closed-form solution for the temperature equations. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed simulation technique reduces the schedule generation time by more than half.




Microfabrication for Microfluidics


Book Description

Providing a definitive source of knowledge about the principles, materials, and process techniques used in the fabrication of microfluidics, this practical volume is a must for your reference shelf. The book focuses on fabrication, but also covers the basic purpose, benefits, and limitations of the fabricated structures as they are applied to microfluidic sensor and actuator functions. You find guidance on rapidly assessing options and tradeoffs for the selection of a fabrication method with clear tabulated process comparisons.