edfas.org 23 ELECTRONIC DEVICE FAILURE ANALYSIS | VOLUME 26 NO. 3 outcome suggested that the RDLs, especially the finepitched ones located under the chiplets, would not be clearly observable. This prediction was corroborated by our scans (refer to Fig. 11), which showed that the RDLs indeed lacked clear visibility. This result highlights the proposed metric’s potential in preemptively identifying inspection challenges in complex IC packages. In contrast to the RDLs, both the bump pitch and TSV pitches exhibited high compatibility scores. This was a significant finding, as it suggested good observability for these features. The scans in Fig. 12 validated this prediction, demonstrating clear visibility for the bump and TSV pitches. This aspect of the results underscores the metric’s ability to accurately forecast the effectiveness of x-ray inspection for larger or less intricate features within the IC package. CONCLUSION An effort to contribute to advancing semiconductor manufacturing was made by introducing a novel approach to predicting the compatibility of integrated circuit packages with x-ray-based inspection during the critical pre-silicon stage. Our development of the CMx-ray metric represents a pivotal step in enabling chip designers to proactively assess and enhance the visibility of fine-pitched features in advanced IC packages through x-ray inspection. The concept was validated on a test sample and the actual x-ray images were compared with compatibility predictions. The implications of this concept are far-reaching, benefiting not only the failure analysis community but also the electronic design automation (EDA) community. For the FA community, this approach sets a precedent for extending the design for inspectability concept to other inspection modalities, leveraging a deep understanding of the underlying physics. 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