Texas Instruments Corporation

David Anthony White

Ronald Andrew Michallick

Michael Nolan Jervis

Stephanie Watts Butler

Gabriel George Barna

Donald A Sofge

A method of bondwire integrity testing a packaged IC includes forcing a pin current or pin voltage level sufficient to forward bias a parasitic diode at a plurality of pins relative to a selected reference pin. The pins are connected to bond pads (BPs) on the IC by a bondwire. The bond pads coupled to a diffusion of a first type that forms the parasitic diode (D) with a region doped the second type coupled to a bondpad wirebonded to the reference pin. The resulting pin voltages or pin currents at measured, and present pin-pin relationships are determined. The present pin-pin relationships are compared to stored pin-pin relationship data for a device design of the IC. Results from the comparing are used to determine whether any present pin-pin relationships are significantly different as compared to the stored pin-pin relationships to identify a bondwire problem for at least one pin.

Bondwire testing of IC using pin diode signatures

A reduced-impedance active measurement device, for example, includes a current transformer for generating a sense current for monitoring a drive signal. An amplifier is arranged to generate an offsetting current in response to the sense current, wherein the offsetting current is opposite in polarity to the sense current. A sense resistor is arranged to develop a sensed voltage signal across the sense resistor in response to the received sense current and the offsetting current. Optionally, the drive signal can be used to drive and control a motor.

Reduced-impedance active current measurement

A virtual sensor based monitoring and fault detection/classification system (10) for semiconductor processing equipment (12) is provided. A plurality of equipment sensors (14) are each operable to measure a process condition and provide a signal representing the measured process condition. A plurality of filtering process units (16) are each operable to receive at least one signal from the plurality of equipment sensors (14) and to reduce data represented by the at least one signal and provide filtered data. A plurality of virtual sensors (24) are each operable to receive the filtered data. The plurality of virtual sensors (24) model states of the processing equipment (12) and a work piece in the processing equipment (12). Each virtual sensor is operable to provide an output signal representing an estimated value for the modeled state. A rule based logic system (26) is operable to receive and process the signals provided by the plurality of equipment sensors (14) and the output signals provided by the virtual sensors (24) to monitor processing equipment (12) or to detect and classify faults within the processing equipment (12).

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McKinney, TX, United States of America

David Anthony White