Fast and efficient method to detect probe mark and wire bond induced pad damage

Under non-optimized wafer probe and wire bonding conditions, pad cratering/interlevel dielectric (ILD) cracks may result in an electrical failure. The conventional procedures to analyse these failures include fault localization, optical inspection, SEM inspection and Focused Ion Beam cross-section, which can be very time consuming. In this paper, we introduce a method to detect these failure more expeditiously using optical microscopy and chemical delayering.