A case study in time-based failure mode and successful mechanism identification by accelerated stress method

Automated testing of semiconductor devices has been increasingly more complex in the effort of catching failures in the shortest possible time as part of maintaining the cost competitiveness of the device. Typically entire test programs for medium complexity devices may run in the microseconds. However, what if the failure encountered by the device only manifests after several minutes of continuous operation ? This is also a challenge for semiconductor failure analysis since the failure mode will only occur after a prolonged time of device operation. This paper will discuss a case study wherein the device will fail at the output voltage parameter only after approximately several minutes in continuous biased condition.