Parametric Testing / Scribeline Probing / Agilent 4073

From Ira Feldman's blog

IEEE Semiconductor Wafer Test Workshop – Parametric / Scribeline Probing – Session Six (Tuesday)
Here are the highlights from Session Five – Signal Integrity of the 20th annual IEEE Semiconductor Wafer Test Workshop (SWTW) from Tuesday June 8th.

Jay Thomas, Grund Technical Solutions, LLC., “Probe Cards with Modular Integrated Switching Matrices”:

For the last 30 years, most scribeline parametric testing has been approximately 85% Current-Voltage (I-V) testing and 15% Capacitance-Voltage (C-V) testing. For these types of tests a 10 MHz bandwidth switch matrix has been sufficient.

However, some of the larger fabs such as HP, IBM, and Intel have started performing pulsed Current-Voltage (PIV) and electrostatic discharge (ESD) testing. These customers started this type of testing about four years ago unknown to Agilent & Keithley (the two largest DC parametric tester suppliers). This PIV and ESD testing requires high frequency switch matrices with 1 GHz bandwidth. [For more about ESD testing please see Jay’s second presentation below in this session.]

In addition as oxides have become very thin this has made them “leaky”, therefore there is also a need to run higher frequency measurements. Typically the matrix switch needs to be 5x to 10x the bandwidth of the desired test frequency. This is also driving the need for higher bandwidth matrix switches.

Grund has developed a modular stack of a mother board with daughter cards to provide a 1 GHz matrix switch called the Genus matrix system. This stack of printed circuit boards (PCB) sits above the probe card on the prober and provides the necessary high frequency interconnect to the parametric tester and other equipment (ESD source, oscilloscope, etc.).

Ray Robertazzi, IBM Research, “New Directions in Parametric and Defect Structure Testing”:

As feature sizes shrink at the 22 nm process node and below, the variability in basic process measurements increases. Therefore they need to rely on statistical methods instead of a single pass / fail measurement. These statistical methods require a significant numbers of measurements to be valid. However the linear increase in test time due to the additional measurements is unacceptable.

What is needed is the ability to perform a large number of parametric measurements in parallel. The DC parametric testers currently used have the required sensitivity to make measurements in below 1 pA however on only one or two channels. While typical high parallelism logic testers which have thousands of channels that can operate in parallel don’t have the accuracy to measure below 10 nA (i.e. they are four orders of magnitude worse than the parametric testers).

Therefore, Verigy developed a pA source measurement unit (SMU) for their 93000 test system. The Verigy team led by Kosuke Miyao developed a fully integrated solution to provide 100 channels to perform measurements in the 5 pA range. [Kosuke was one of the excellent project managers on the Docking Services team I managed at Agilent. Kosuke: it is always a pleasure to hear a customer gush about how happy they are at the end of a project.] In addition to the SMU, the solution included high parallelism parametric probe cards from JEM, a new low leakage tri-axial pogo tower, and integrated control software.

However, modern test systems suffer from the lack of ability to observe or validate results. In Ray’s opinion test systems are the most complex electromechanical systems every developed by man. IBM under estimated how difficult the validation portion of the project would be. The Verigy validation load board (VLB) was designed to calibrate the SMU in the test system and had no observability for external validation. So in order to validate the test system setup they built a pA diagnostic instrument which allows correlation with a HP 4073 parametric tester and provides National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) traceability.

After validating the solution, the system was release to production. In production it has demonstrated a 5x throughput improvement due to the high parallelism in testing and is currently limited by the prober speed.

Jay Thomas, Grund Technical Solutions, LLC., “Wafer Level ESD Probe Card Solutions”:

Production testing of electrostatic discharge (ESD) test structures is a new market. In the past, ESD testing was previously done off line using a manual probe system. Neither Agilent (where he managed parametric testing applications) nor Keithley (to the best of his knowledge) support this in an automated fashion.

The traditional Human Body Model (HBM) provides a high voltage 2 A pulse with a 500 nS decay by discharging a 100 pF capacitor with a 1500 Ohm resistor. [Similar to the shock from running your feet across the carpet then touching another object.] However, the new European standard (required for CE marking) is the Human Metal Model (HMM). The HMM combines the HBM with a Charged Device Model (CDM) to simulate the discharge that might occur from holding an insulated screw driver. His presentation has scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of the different types of damage that is seen based upon the discharge model used.

Companies put ESD test structures in the scribe lines to predict how well the ESD protection circuits will work. Typically the ESD discharge takes place “off line” on an ESD “tester” (actually a discharge setup typically on a manual prober). Then the wafer is put back in the wafer prober and the test structure is tested using a DC parametric tester. Similarly to test actual parts you need to zap the part on the ESD “tester” and then need to test the part with a standard digital/mixed-signal tester to see if it survived. One example shown was a Hanwa system for CDM (about $250K). However, it needs to zap the pins one at a time. And on a 3,000 pin ball grid array (BGA) that would take some time to accomplish.

Through the use of the Genus matrix system (described above in Jay’s first presentation), they are able to integrate ESD discharge equipment in to the parametric test setup. This allows the “zapping” of the test structure and testing of it in an automated fashion without moving the wafer to an offline setup.

Note: I will post the link for the slides once they become available.

Tutorial: Option 303 - Get 7 function Generators in 1! For N5171B, N5172B, N5181B and N5182B X-Series signal generators. Demo with N9030A and MSO8104A

This  video reviews the Agilent N5171B EXG analog signal generator's option 303 multi-function generator and how it is set up with N9030A PXA signal analyzer (embedded with 89600 VSA software) and an MSO8104A Oscilloscope to simultaneously analyze a CHIRP radar signal (pulse+FM) from impairment signals of AM noise, AM drift and Frequency drift.
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R&S FSU26 Spectrum Analyzer is simply "The Best."

R&S FSU26 Spectrum Analyzer is simply "The Best."

Being the best means the fastest, most accurate, highest dynamic range, low phase noise, level accuracy, and resolution bandwidth. That's best! If your serious about manufacturing wireless, then your serious about FSU26.

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Review of FSVR Real Time Spectrum Analyzer by R&S - Capable of locating and drilling down on ultra short sporadic interference events yet maintaining conventional wideband analysis. Video

The R&S FSVR is the first spectrum analyzer to simultaneously capture 2 modes of analysis

1. Conventional Hetrodyne Spectrum Analysis
2. Real Time

Based on the FSV, the FSVR has the pedigree as the markets fastest and most accurate conventional spectrum analyzer.

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The real time mode is what makes the FSVR exceptional.  By seamlessly grabbing RF signals in the time domain and converting them to the frequency domain, it is capable of locating and drilling down on ultra short sporadic interference events yet maintaining conventional wideband analysis.  Talk about having your cake and eating it too.  See the video and be amazed!   

8753D Measuring a Device in the Time Domain (Option 010 Only)

Measuring a Device in the Time Domain (Option 010 )

The HP 8753D Option 010 allows you to measure the time domain response of a device. Time domain analysis is useful for isolating a device problem in time or in distance. Time and distance are related by the velocity factor of your device under test. The analyzer measures the frequency response of your device and uses an inverse Fourier transform to convert the data to the time domain.

Gating
Time domain analysis allows you to mathematically remove individual parts of the time domain response to see the undesirable responses...(read more in the Agilent 8753D users manual starting on page 2-68  )

Agilent 8722ES Vector Network Analyzer VNA 40GHz - BRL Test

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Review of Agilent E4440A

Roger Allan | Electronic Design

Advanced performance in sophisticated test and measurement equipment generally comes at the price of complexity of use. Adding more features and capabilities to an instrument and its front panel often requires that users take a lot of time to just figure out how to get the most out of that instrument. But a new milestone in both performance and ease of use has been achieved with the E4440A spectrum analyzer from Agilent Technologies, the first in the company's Performance Series Analyzer (PSA) family (Fig. 1).

Digital technology was used to give the instrument what the company claims is "unparalleled performance, enhanced flexibility, and modern connectivity." Because of its flexibility, the E4440A can be employed by a wide variety of designers, from novice to expert, across a number of disciplines like aerospace, communications, R&D, and manufacturing, for both general and highly specialized signal-analysis purposes. The instrument's combination of speed and performance lets designers characterize signals that they couldn't even "see" before. And, it makes possible measurements that are much quicker and more accurate.

Speed, accuracy, dynamic range, resolution, and detection capabilities have all been optimized to what Agilent says are "industry firsts." Without using conventional LC and crystal filters that can slow signals down, the PSA platform doubles the speed of many measurements, permitting faster spur searches than other commercially available spectrum analyzers.

For example, the 30-Hz to 26.5-GHz analyzer features wide-ranging sweep speeds. It can measure very slow sweep speeds to capture intermittent signals. Zero-band sweep speeds range from 1 µs to 6000 seconds. For spans greater than 10 Hz, sweep speeds range from 2 ms to 2000 seconds. Users can trigger the sweeps with video, free-run, line, and external signals, and the trigger can be delayed up to 500 ms.

Using digital signal processing, the instrument offers 0.35-dB absolute-amplitude accuracy versus the typical 1.5 dB of other instruments, and an impressive 0.2-dB linearity over a 100-dB range. It removes log-fidelity errors almost entirely (0.2 dB total), significantly reduces bandwidth-switching er-rors (0.05 dB), and completely eliminates IF gain errors (0 dB). Therefore, users can operate effectively with closer tolerances and shrink guard bands.

In addition, the E4440A features a distortion-free dynamic range of 113 dB. This is critical for making adjacent-channel pow-er measurements in the cellular telecommunications industry.

The E4440A provides optimized phase-noise capability. Designers can set the analyzer to improve phase noise in the close-in mode to less than 30 kHz. This is particularly useful for identifying low-level signals otherwise hidden under phase-noise skirts. Or, users can choose the auto mode, which is more than 30 kHz, to let the instrument select the phase-noise setting at an optimal speed.

Another important parameter for the E4440A is flexibility, as this allows customizable measurements for both novice and experienced users. Measurements may be fine-tuned with 160 resolution bandwidth settings. Also, users can maximize the usable dynamic range with a 2-dB step attenuator and balance close-in or far-out phase noise (Fig. 2). Note that the industry standard for step attenuation is 10 dB.

Broad and easy connectivity are featured by the E4440A, minimizing the time wasted when getting data into and out of the instrument. The E4440A enables screen and data capture with popular Microsoft applications, and it can connect to LANs for data transfers. Plug-and-play drivers are available for Agilent VEE and other popular test-automation software, in-cluding LabView and LabWindows. Furthermore, the instrument supports popular PCL3 and PCL5 printers using a parallel port.

Unlike the previous-generation Agilent spectrum analyzers based on a 68000 CISC processor, the PSA line of analyzers is based on a RISC processor. By extensive use of digital and DSP technology, Agilent's designers were able to shrink the analyzer's eight internal pc boards from previous-generation units to just one.

A key element in the instrument's performance capability is a 3-GHz preamplifier that improves the digital average-noise level (DANL) to an impressive −153 dBm over a 10-MHz to 3-GHz frequency range, a figure that will be improved to −167 dBm. The preamplifier first feeds its signals to a sophisticated voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) that actually acts as two VCOs, and then onto a 14-bit, 30-Msample/s analog-to-digital converter (Fig. 3).