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edfas.org 41 ELECTRONIC DEV ICE FA I LURE ANALYSIS | VOLUME 23 NO . 3 EDUCATION NEWS T he EDFAS Education Subcommittee strives for the development and delivery of educational products to theEDFASmembership. Keepingwith its strategic focus on reaching a broader audience, including facilitat- ing Q&A and educational exchanges on the ASM Connect platform, the Subcommittee has recently started inviting ISTFA tutorial speakers to present short format presenta- tions on selected FA topics. These presentations are now available on ASMConnect. Use the following link: https:// bit.ly/3pNQdxn and click on the Educational Tutorials folder. For this issue, we are highlighting a tutorial on focused ion beam (FIB) for microchip circuit edit and fault isola- tion, presented by Steven Herschbein. Despite significant advances in modeling and extensive use of automated layout and checking algorithms, interconnect wiring mistakes, logic errors, and speed-path bottlenecks con- tinue to happen in real-world integrated circuit design. A single error in an advanced processor can result in several months of delay while waiting for a new mask set and a wafer fab run to produce supposedly “fixed” and fully testable product. Focused ion beam chip circuit editing offers a solution to these problems. The FIB editing tool is a “direct-write” system that can be used to selectively reconfigure a chip’s internal functions. A precisely tuned and placed ion beam in conjunctionwith etch and deposi- tion process gases are used to selectively uncover internal circuitry and rewrite the copper wiring pattern. This tutorial examines thebusiness case for circuit edit, unique aspects of the chip edit FIB, explores the complexi- ties of semiconductor packaging and the module/silicon preparation process for backside editing, introduces some novel techniques to enhance circuit-edit success, and works through a number of actual edit examples. The discussion also provides an overview of what’s next when the gallium FIB beam spot size and characteristics reach its technological limits. Herschbein’s tutorial can be accessed using the following link: https://bit.ly/3cw06ve. For additional information on the EDFAS Education Subcommittee, contact Bhanu Sood a t bhanu.sood@ nasa.gov. Bhanu P. Sood, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Bhanu.sood@nasa.gov SPOTLIGHT ON TUTORIALS A slide from Steven Herschbein’s tutorial available on ASM Connect. The tutorial gives an overview of focused ion beam for microchip circuit edit and fault isolation.