The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 31, 2010
Filed:
Dec. 21, 2007
Theodore R. Lundquist, Milpitas, CA (US);
Ketan Shah, Cupertino, CA (US);
Tamayasu Anayama, Cupertino, CA (US);
Mark A. Thompson, Austin, TX (US);
Theodore R. Lundquist, Milpitas, CA (US);
Ketan Shah, Cupertino, CA (US);
Tamayasu Anayama, Cupertino, CA (US);
Mark A. Thompson, Austin, TX (US);
DCG Systems, Inc., Fremont, CA (US);
Abstract
An improved method, apparatus, and control/guiding software for localizing, characterizing, and correcting defects in integrated circuits, particularly open or resistive contact/via defects and metal bridging defects, using FIB technology. An apparatus for identifying an abnormal discontinuity in a contact/via in an integrated circuit comprising a focused ion beam system to scan the ion beam over the contact/via to do remove or deposit via material, a detector to collect a secondary particle signal from the contact/via material that gets removed, a sub-system for storing the secondary particle signal from the contact/via in time as well as x-y scan position, a sub-system for correlating secondary particle signals and identifying discontinuities in the correlated secondary particle signals, a sub-system for optimizing the display of the abnormal discontinuity; and a computer to implement software aspects of the system.