Merry Christmas – Nano-fun for the end of year 2022 Wishing all friends of our small team, the very best for the festive season, and a prosperous start to...
European / Middle East Issue: Winter 2022 A new IC design FIB Nano-surgery datapoint, our JEDEC MSL Rel-test services and Euros discount. Dear NanoScope Customer, greetings in our first email since COVID. For Silicon DESIGNERS we’ve got a new node success data point, for RELIABILITY Engineers there are new MSL testing services, for EU customers there is our 1€ = 1£ deal, plus NanoScope is growing. First FIB circuit nano-surgery fix to a 7nm node, from the FRONTSIDE. Our unique expertise has allowed us to successfully modify this advanced 7nm process with 13 metal layers at the M2 level, from the front. The device die was then flipchip packaged and tested with a 65% yield. The benefit for the customer concerned was ‘invaluable’. Watch out for the upcoming article on this story. Don’t forget to read our 1st article on ‘How to get the most benefit from IC Nano-Surgery” – part 2 coming soon. Launching our low cost MSL testing service for packaged parts for both R&D and production Reliability. All MSL testing is done to JEDEC standards, but now for the first time customers can choose to have a JEDEC CERTIFIED or an UNCERTIFIED test. R&D lots don’t require certification, so why not save 30% on your MSL trials of new packages? Loading a test lot for Temperature Humidity Bias testing (THB) New colleague – supporting accounts, logistics, orders, quality and billing We’re pleased to introduce Janine Stone, who is now managing project administration and compliance at NanoScope, adding much needed bandwidth for our technical offerings. Contact Janine here. Please welcome Janine Stone to the NanoScope team. We’re re-introducing our 1€ = 1£ exchange rate. To help our EU customers during this period of economic chaos, our 1:1 exchange rate adds clarity, security and a 16%...
There are many advantages of correcting an IC design with FIB Nano-Surgery, but sometimes there are also problems, and many designers have been put off the technique. Did your last FIB work as you expected? Or was the yield low? or you got results you couldn’t explain? A quick recap of the reasons to do a FIB edit and how you would go about it, might be helpful. SCENE: So you’ve taped out your big new design, and 4 months and ₤400,000 /$/€ later, your 1st Silicon devices have arrived for tests to start. And immediately, there’s a problem. If you are lucky, then a normal functional test has failed and after a few days of head scratching it becomes clear what the cause is, and what the most likely metal fix should be. If you are unlucky and it’s more subtle, but still a show stopper for customer acceptance, then the fix strategy may be less obvious. Either way, prompt action is required and there are some difficult decisions to make. Your colleagues, customers and suppliers are all waiting to help get your product to market. Then there is the expense and the delays: to testing, to qualification, to sales and to revenue – which all add up to a serious commercial inconvenience. What ARE your options here? Risk a design change because there is a high confidence that the fix is understood? Do you roll the dice (the expensive and time consuming ones) and trust that the fix will work? Or spend a week trying to get a few chips fixed using FIB nano-surgery and give yourself some...
NanoScope gave an Online invited Tutorial on behalf of IMAPS UK on the 18th September 2020 on the subject of Focused Ion Beam (FIB) Circuit Nano-Surgery and Failure Analysis from Board to Gate. The Tutorial Archives can be accessed here. This presentation included a comparison of Cross Sectioning techniques with a comparison of the benefits and limitations of each method. Conventional Mechanical sectioning (with extended capabilities) vs FIB micro-sectioning vs Plasma FIB Sectioning. Also included was an introduction to the techniques of Silicon IC Circuit Nano-Surgery and other IC specific techniques that are now becoming possible to perform on package substrates, system boards, complex packages and other novel die mounting...
Dear LinkedIN 1 st contacts and NanoScope Customers Why not try something new while you are working from home, and Video inspect your own IC design live over the web? As our normal activities are curtailed by Covid19, we have to positively look out for new ways of doing things. This especially requires a much heavier use of video conferencing and getting used to that as well. Working and socialising remotely like this gives us the chance to adapt and innovate quickly, and is more necessary in order to maintain our morale, and our professional momentum. If we are successful in this, we will be able to minimise the disruption to our lives and to our companies, and reduce the time needed to get back to normal afterwards. Trying something new may even teach us some valuable lessons about what is important, and how to improve ourselves and our processes. So why not give this a go, and join us on-line. What can I see? This offer is for our LiveOPTICAL capability, and so permits the full imaging capabilities that our optical microscopes permit. This uses white light and is capable of magnifications of up to 1000X. We can navigate around your device with your direction and change imaging conditions and light incidence to highlight specific information as you wish. You can review chip ID’s and bonding layout, type, alignment & integrity (useful anti-counterfeit checks). You can see what that external IP block looks like, and where it connects to your design. You can confirm the presence of contamination, or suspected defects or mask errors. Check RDL metal and...
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