2003 Photo Contest Winners

Congratulations to the 2003 winners!
 Category I: Color Images
1st Place:

Gil Garteiz

Tower Semiconductor, Israel

High-mag optical photo of a backside delayered (upside down) 0.18um device. Here we see silicided active areas on top (white), poly gates behind (blue), and metal one (yellowish) an additional layer below. Metal 2 is even deeper, but out of focus.

2nd Place:


Ang Chong Yong

Agilent Technologies, Malaysia

This is part of the housing structure of a CMOS image
sensor device. A round shape cover glass is assembled by
some adhesive epoxy onto the lens holder. The
photo reveals the effect of delamination between the
cover glass and the lens holder. Taking the shape
of the cover glass, it forms a colorful mini rainbow.
3rd Place: 

Varaporn Suwanmethanond

Gemfire Corporation, California

Emerging bubbles showed the leak locations in the package during hermeticity test. This pointed out to the weakest solder-joint-area between the lid
and the package.

 Category II: Black and White Images
1st Place:

Frank Martini

Zilog, Idaho

SEM image of a destructive latch-up site taken on a Phillip’s XL30 SFEG. The tungsten plugs and the silicon are deformed where a parasitic bipolar formed inducing latch-up current. Sample was de-processed using parallel polishing and wet etching.

2nd Place: 

Jay Kopycinski

Motorola, Arizona

Surf’s Up – Electrical overstress at metal trace
caused a molten “wave” of aluminum to reflow
through an ILD breach and solidify into
this 3D structure.

3rd Place:

Marshall Hiew

AMD, Malaysia

High–resolution SEM observation of a protrusion at the column of a memory array.Micrograph magnification is 150KX.
 Category III: False Color Images
1st Place:

Jiang Yaoyao

IME, Singapore

Scanning Capacitance Microscopy (SCM) imaging of a 0.80 µm n-channel transistor. Different colors represent different material types: purple/pink N, red P, green/black oxide and heavily doped material.

2nd Place:

Jerry M. Soden and Ed I. Cole, Jr.

Sandia National Labs, New Mexico

Sub-surface OBIV signal of a RF diode
defect with a fern-like microstructure.
3rd Place:


Zhiyong Wang, Rajen Dias, Jan Gaudestad, Antonio Orozco

Wang and Dias—Intel Corporation, Arizona
Gaudestad and Orozco—Neocera, Maryland

3D current glow. Signal 1 shorted to signal 9 through outside edge of the metal sealing ring of a optical multiplexer. The current density image showing parallel current paths through the short location including the current flowing in the sealing ring.