Revisiting 3D-X-ray for Rapid Reverse Engineering in Large Electronic Packages and PCBs

Abstract

Reverse engineering of electronics is a rapidly growing field that is limited primarily by the tools available for performing inspection & data processing. 3D X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) is a popular choice for electronics & semiconductor Failure Analysis (FA) applications, but has faced challenges such as metallic noise and artifacts limiting the reverse engineering community. Here, we present a novel high-resolution 3D X-ray imaging system, utilizing the technique of Angled CT. We demonstrate how this innovative imaging approach provides fast, sub-micron data volumes that overcome the beam hardening, inspection time, and sample size limitations imposed by conventional CT. The analysis is demonstrated using the reverse engineering of a commercially-available Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA Printed Circuit Board (PCB) as the case study.