Early LSI mass production - fast yield improvement and Si debugging

Failure analysis plays a very important role in the early introduction and fast yield improvement of new generation LSI's. We have developed novel failure analysis technologies including an expert-system-based memory cell failure cause identification system, which is linked to a particle or defect monitoring tool, as well as failure location isolation systems for memory peripheral circuitry and logic LSI's. This paper reviews all these technologies and introduces some examples of their implementation.