The 21st International Symposium on the Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits (IPFA 2014) was held in Marina Bay Sands Singapore from 30 June to 4 July 2014. It is organized by the IEEE Reliability/CPMT/ED Singapore Chapter and is technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Electron Device Society and IEEE Reliability Society. IPFA is devoted to the fundamental understanding of the physical mechanisms of semiconductor device failures and issues related to semiconductor device reliability, yield and performance, especially those related to advanced process technologies.

A 2-day tutorial session which preceded the 3-day conference program featured comprehensive technical reviews on a wide range of topics – memory reliability (Robin Degraeve, IMEC), TSV reliability (Rui Huang, UT Austin), IC Design Debug by Optical Probing (Mike Bruce, SEMICAPS), SRAM Failure Analysis (Zhigang Song, IBM), Focus Ion Beam Backside Processing (Christian Boit, TU Berlin) and High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (Tim White, NTU Singapore).

The two keynote papers were presented by Prof. Michael Pecht from University of Maryland, USA on “Advances in The Qualification of Microelectronic Devices” and Mr. Raj Nair, from GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Singapore on “Failure Analysis Techniques for More Than Moore Semiconductor Technologies”. More than 50 oral presentations (inclusive of 2 best paper exchanges with the European Symposium on Reliability of Electron Devices, Failure Physics and Analysis (ESREF) and International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis (ISTFA)) were also delivered by researchers from leading companies and universities from Europe, United States and Asia.

A picture contest of micrographic pictures of device failures “Art of Failure Analysis” is a major attraction during IPFA for all the participants. This Photo Contest provides FA enthusiasts a platform to showcase their best photos and artistic traits, and the winning pictures have been featured in IEEE Spectrum in the last few years. For this year, IPFA 2014 received 36 pictures of device failures for the contest from the different continents. Top 10 photos were shortlisted by the organizing committee for the final voting by IPFA attendees in the conference to determine the winner.

The best picture selected is “Birdie in the Hole” which shows an improper filling of a copper via resolved using a Field Emission gun SEM taken by Lew Li Lian of GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Singapore. A semiconductor device surface imaged using SEM shows a flower and is named “Hibiscus” won the second prize. The image was taken by Khoo Bing Sheng of Wintech Nano Technology, Singapore. Third prize went to two images. “Two Loving Birds on Tree Branch” taken by Muhamad Himli Rosnan of ON Semiconductors is depicting a SEM image of metal peeling on a bond pad. “White Christmas” is the image of corrosion growth on a wafer surface from Cheng Khew Cheng of SSMC, Singapore. The copy right of all these pictures displayed is with IPFA and the Chapter.

Next year’s IPFA will be held in July in Taiwan. More details can be obtained at: http://ieee-ipfa.org/


Birdie in the Hole	Hibiscus


Two Loving Birds on Tree Branch	White Christmas