What are the common chip reliability tests?

Date：2024-01-29 16:18:14Views：96

Reliability testing is crucial for the manufacturing and design process of chips. By conducting comprehensive and rigorous reliability testing, potential design defects, manufacturing issues, or environmental sensitivities can be identified and resolved in advance, ensuring the performance and reliability of chips in long-term use.

This test aims to verify the stability, reliability, and durability of the chip under different environmental conditions, to ensure its ability to operate stably for a long time. Reliability testing includes various testing items, such as temperature testing, voltage testing, functional testing, and reliability durability testing.

Accelerated testing: In semiconductor devices, some common acceleration factors are temperature, humidity, voltage, and current. In most cases, accelerated testing does not alter the physical characteristics of the fault, but it can alter the observation time. The change between acceleration conditions and normal usage conditions is called "derating". High acceleration testing is a crucial part of JEDEC based qualification certification testing.

Temperature cycling: According to the JED22-A104 standard, temperature cycling (TC) allows components to undergo a transition between extreme high and low temperatures. When conducting this test, repeatedly expose the components to these conditions for a predetermined number of cycles.

High temperature working life HTOL: HTOL is used to determine the reliability of devices under high temperature working conditions. This test is usually conducted over a long period of time according to the JESD22-A108 standard.

Temperature and humidity bias high acceleration stress test BHAST: According to the JESD22-A110 standard, THB and BHAST allow devices to withstand high temperature and high humidity conditions while being under bias voltage, with the goal of accelerating corrosion of the devices. THB and BHAST have the same purpose, but the BHAST conditions and testing process make the reliability team's testing speed much faster than THB.

Hot press/unbiased HAST: Hot press and unbiased HAST are used to determine device reliability under high temperature and humidity conditions. Like THB and BHAST, it is used to accelerate corrosion. However, unlike these tests, no bias voltage is applied to the components.

High temperature storage: HTS (also known as "baking" or HTSL) is used to determine the long-term reliability of devices at high temperatures. Unlike HTOL, the device is not under operating conditions during testing.

Electrostatic discharge (ESD): Static charge is a non-equilibrium charge that occurs when left stationary. Usually, it is generated by mutual friction or separation between the surfaces of insulators; One surface gains electrons, while the other surface loses electrons. The result is an unbalanced electrical condition known as static charge.

When static charges move from one surface to another, they become electrostatic discharge (ESD) and move between the two surfaces in the form of miniature lightning.

When static charges move, a current is formed, which can damage or destroy the gate oxide layer, metal layer, and junction.

Of course, the above are just a few common reliability testing methods. Other tests include electromagnetic interference testing, voltage fluctuation testing, electrical characteristic testing, and long-term operation testing, which will not be discussed in detail in this article.