2004 Photo Contest Winners

Congratulations to the 2004 winners!
 Category I: Color Images
1st Place:

Steve Elwell
Freescale, Arizona

Incoming! This RF device suffered severe electrical overstress at the metal drain finger, resulting in this 3 dimensional “explosion” effect! Has this event ended, or is it still ongoing?

2nd Place:


Mark Lam Tiam Weng

Institute of Microelectronics, Singapore
Particle on top of wafer with Low K
Dielectric Film. The Flame like
defect looks like the chinese character
“Huo” for fire.
3rd Place: 

Ray Haythornthwaite

Semiconductor Insights, Canada
Image of an “exploding” failed Light Emitting Diode (LED).

 Category II: Black and White Images

1st Place:

Murali Hanabe, Sesil Mathew, and Sridhar Canumalla

Nokia, Texas
A SnAgCu solder ball in a chip scale package (CSP) was etched away to reveal non-wetted areas on the Cu pad on the CSP. The picture shows the growth of Ag3Sn intermetallic phase with dendritic morphology from the Cu6Sn5 scallop-shaped intermetallic phase on the Cu pad. The Cu6Sn5 intermetallic also forms hexagonal, rod-shaped crystals. The non-wetted areas were contributing to early failure by acting as crack initiation sites.

2nd Place: 

Jay Kopycinski

Freescale, Arizona

SEM image of ESD induced overstress
damage at gate poly of MOS transistor.
Fused polysilicon can be seen stretching
from the gate poly (left) to the source
contact area.

3rd Place:

Brett Engel and John Petrus

IBM, New York

3-Dimentional SEM image depicting thermal cycle induced shear in an isolated stacked via structure in copper interconnect
 Category III: False Color Images

1st Place:

Carl Wintgens and Michael Phaneuf

Wintgens – Semiconductor Insights, Canada
Phaneuf – Fibics, Canada

EFTEM color image of a cross-section through an Al metal line and W “plug” contact. In this image, Si is blue, Ti is red, and TiN is yellow. A Si-rich nodule is visible, as well as a potential failure site in the TiN barrier that could result in “volcano” formation.

2nd Place:

Olivier Crepel, Solomon Woods and Lee Knauss

Crepel – Philips, France

Woods and Knauss – Neocera, Maryland

Magnetic field distribution of an
RF Inductor measured with a
magnetoresistive sensor.

3rd Place:

Otwin Breitenstein

Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Germany

Lock-in thermogram of an integrated circuit after ESD stressing (T-modulation amplitude image, Tmax = 10 mK). The bright spots are sites of leakage currents, the weakest ones dissipating about 100 microwatts.