Fig. 6 shows an example of isolating an
electrical short on a large polysilicon capacitor
following the removal of metallization.
Summary -
Like many tools in our failure analysis lab,
EBIC analysis is not a catch-all analytical tool
that can be used in every instance to isolate a
physical failure sites. However, the availability
of the SEM to most analysts makes it a
versatile, inexpensive tool that can be used to
isolate and characterize many different failure
mechanisms. Like many tools, its only limits
are in the imagination of the analysts.