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ELECTRONIC DEVICE FAILURE ANALYSIS | VOLUME 18 NO. 3
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the Expo, and the twelve Expo-only hours presented the
opportunity for attendees to network with key vendors
representing the core business area in the fields of reli-
ability and failure physics and analysis of electron devices
and systems. Tuesday’s cocktails at Capitole, the Toulouse
city hall, and the gala dinner at the space museum (Cite
de l’espace) were also excellent networking opportunities.
With up to four parallel tracks, the conference was
very dense with rich content. During Monday afternoon’s
opening session, the first keynote speaker, Sylvestre
Maurice (IRAP, France), presented a fascinating talk
entitled “ChemCam Instrument on the
Curiosity
Rover:
From R&D to Operations on Mars; Be Reliable or Die.”
The ChemCam project started as an R&D program at
the French space agency CNES in 2001, was selected by
NASA in 2005, was launched in 2011, and has operated
on the
Curiosity
rover on Mars since 2012. It consists of a
high-energy laser that, at a distance, creates plasma on
Mars’ soils and rocks to infer their elemental composition.
He presented how the anomaly of a laser diode used for
instrument autofocus was handled. The failure of this
diodedidnot allowadjustment of theablation laser pulses
on rocks, forcing operators tomultiply them. The software
solution developed by the ChemCam team achieved
autofocus by another process, thus restoring the entire
system’s agility. This feedback will be incorporated into
the next SuperCam instrument.
The second keynote, by Ramesh Karri (Polytechnic
Institute of NewYork University), focused on a very impor-
tant topic, “Towards Hardware Cyber Security.” Hardware
security and trust are important design objectives, similar
to power, performance, reliability, and testability. He
highlighted why hardware security and trust are impor-
tant objectives from the economics, security, and safety
perspectives. Importantmessages fromthis talk included:
(1) understanding simple “gotchas” when traditional
design for test (DFT), test, and validation techniques are
used (scan chains, JTAG, system-on-chip test, assertion-
based validation); (2) understanding how traditional DFT,
test, and validation techniques can be used to improve
hardware security and trust; and (3) understanding
“design-for-trust” approaches that can provide testability
without compromising security and trust.
The opening session concluded with the Best Papers
from sister conferences:
• ISTFA 2014 Outstanding Paper:
“Localization of Weak
Points in Thin Dielectric Layers by Electron Beam
AbsorbedCurrent (EBAC) Imaging” by Jörg Jatzkowski,
Michél Simon-Najasek, and Frank Altmann (Center
for Applied Microstructure Diagnostics, Fraunhofer
Institute for Mechanics of Materials, Halle, Germany)
• IPFA 2015 Best Paper:
“UTB GeOI 6T SRAM Cell and
Sense Amplifier Considering BTI Reliability” by Vita
Pi-Ho Hu, Pin Su, and Ching-Te Chuang (Department
of Electronics Engineering and Institute of Electronics,
National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan)
• IRPS 2015 Best Paper:
“Platform Qualification
Methodology: Face Recognition” by Ghadeer Antanius,
Rutvi Trivedi, and Robert Kwasnick (Intel Corporation,
USA)
Monday ended with a buffet served in the exhibition
area.
Catering in the exhibition area
It is not possible to include all the topical tracks (up
to four) held from Tuesday to Friday, but the following
describes the one dedicated to failure analysis. It began
with the invited speaker, Ludwig Balk (University of
Wuppertal, Germany). In his talk, “EOBT: From Past to
Future,” Professor Balk reviewed optical and electron
beam techniques and provided a view into future devel-
opment requirements.
Next came the regular papers andposters session, with
many interesting and varied subjects:
• “Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Diamond for Current
Imaging at the Redistributive Layer Level of Integrated
Circuits”