Engineers from MuAnalysis, Ion-Tof USA, and Tascon GmbH demonstrated how time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy provides unique information to identify suspected counterfeit semiconductor devices, in a presentation from the ASM International ISTFA 2019 conference in Portland, Oregon. They described an example in which the epitaxial layers of a light emitting device (LED) did not match those of the exemplar.
Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToFSIMS) is an analytical technique in which ion beams help to detect the chemical composition of the outer surface region of a sample. The technique can be used in two ways: First, in a pseudo-nondestructive mode called Static SIMS, in which the composition is determined from the first two monolayers of a sample; and second, in Dynamic SIMS mode, in which the sample is eroded during the analysis and the composition is determined over a larger depth, up to several tens of microns.
The engineers showed that SIMS depth profiling revealed significant differences in composition and doping profiles between the authentic LED and the suspect counterfeit LED, confirming the counterfeit status of the suspect device. Specifically, the quantum well structure of the suspected counterfeit LED was between approximately 70 and 330nm from the surface, whereas the quantum well structure of the genuine ZES LED was between 50 and 130nm from the surface. The three-times-thicker structure in the counterfeit LED suggests that this part is perhaps based on older technology.
ToF-SIMS, Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy for counterfeit detection of Electrical, Electronic, and Electromechanical (EEE) parts.
M. Simard-Normandin, C. Banks, MuAnalysis, Ottawa; [email protected]
N. Havercroft, Ion-TOF USA, Chestnut Ridge, New York
P. Clark , Tascon USA, Chestnut Ridge, New York
E. Tallarek, Tascon GmbH, Muenster, Germany
