edfas.org ELECTRONIC DEVICE FAILURE ANALYSIS | VOLUME 28 NO. 1 30 ISTFA 2025 FOCUSED ION BEAM (FIB) USER GROUP Chair/Co-Chairs: Valerie Brogden, Steve Herschbein, Michael Wong, and Edward Principe valerie@covalentmetrology.com, steven.herschbein@gmail.com, mike.wong@thermofisher.com, eprincipe@synchres.com The FIB User Group met in an interactive, townhall style session with three featured talks and live polling. Valerie Brogden opened by asking attendees which topics mattered most; priorities included nitrogen plasma on PFIB, when to retire an aging FIB, and best techniques for FIB on glass substrates. The first speaker, Pralav Shetty, addressed automated TEM preparation and how labs balance speed, yield, and trust. He began with a poll on current practice—fully manual, semi‑automated, or fully automated TEM prep. Most respondents rely on semi‑automated workflows and manual prep, with very few having tried a fully automated, start‑to‑finish flow. Shetty proposed five metrics for comparing workflows: speed, yield, flexibility, variability, and quality. For blanket films and repeating structures, automation often takes longer because of added imaging and checks, but a blind comparison of manual and automated lamellae showed similar quality. Much of the skepticism about full automation appears tied to perceived failure points such as grid attachment and final polish rather than to technical limits. The second speaker, Bernice Zee from AMD Singapore, focused on package‑level FIB for larger, complex devices. She described wider and deeper trenches, diverse materials, and severe curtaining, and led discussion on mitigation strategies (Pt/W caps, rocking polish) and tradeoffs between laser and ion‑based approaches. While femtosecond lasers can accelerate bulk removal, attendees raised concerns about heat‑affected zones, loss of the defect, and cost of ownership. The third speaker, Rose Ring from NenoVision, highlighted integrating AFM directly into FIB‑SEM as part of a “Gen 3” FA toolkit alongside 4D STEM and cryo workflows. By enabling local mechanical and topographic measurements at the failure site, AFM‑in‑SEM promises faster defect localization and shorter time‑to‑market for new products. ISTFA 2025 NANOPROBING AND SCANNING PROBE MICROSCOPY USER GROUP Chair/Co-Chairs: Scott P. Lockledge, Ricky Anthony, Tad Daniel, and Rosine Coq Germanicus slockledge@tiptek.com, ricky.j.anthony@gmail.com, tad.daniel@thermofisher.com, rosine.germanicus@unicaen.fr The ISTFA 2025 Nanoprobing and Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) User Group session highlighted advanced methods and ongoing challenges in characterizing highly integrated microelectronic structures with nanoprobes. Drawing more than 100 participants, the session generated active discussion around ultra-high frequency (UHF) AC nanoprobing. Chair Scott P. Lockledge of Tiptek LLC opened with an overview of current failure-analysis challenges posed by new device architectures such as gate-all-around transistors, backside power-delivery networks, and “soft” or transient electrical faults. These faults can only be directly observed in the time domain, making UHF techniques essential for accurate characterization. Lorenz Lechner of Kleindiek Inc. presented an active probe system featuring multiple nanoprobes with excep- tional rise time and bandwidth. Using a top-view SRAM NMOS example with six probes, he showed how this “MUCH OF THE SKEPTICISM ABOUT FULL AUTOMATION APPEARS TIED TO PERCEIVED FAILURE POINTS SUCH AS GRID ATTACHMENT AND FINAL POLISH RATHER THAN TO TECHNICAL LIMITS.”
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