Optics and Precision Engineering, Volume. 30, Issue 18, 2178(2022)

Optical detection method of electrical signals inside integrated circuits based on lock-in amplifier

Pengcheng LIU1...2, Yingqi MA1,2,*, and Jianwei HAN12 |Show fewer author(s)
Author Affiliations
  • 1State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing0090, China
  • 2School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing100049, China
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    As the number of interconnected layers on the front side of integrated circuits increase, it becomes increasingly difficult to detect the internal electrical signals from the front side of integrated circuits. A probing optical path based on the common-path interferometer is designed in this study to use a laser for detecting the internal electrical signal waveform from the back side of an integrated circuit without making contact. To this end, a signal processing method based on a lock-in amplifier is proposed to extract the weak electro-optical signal of the device carried in the reflected light, which exploits the strong noise rejection and high sensitivity of the lock-in amplifier technique. Considering that the electro-optical signal of the device varies periodically with the electrical signal, the electrical signal from the photodetector is first processed by the lock-in amplifier to eliminate most of the noise, and then the averaging technique is employed to further suppress the external noise and improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the electro-optical signal of the device. Finally, the electro-optical signal of a device drowned in noise is extracted and the electrical information inside the device is reconstructed. The electro-optical signal of the circuit node with a dynamic operating current in the order of μA inside the chip is successfully detected using the proposed method. The signal-to-noise ratio of the extracted signal reaches 4.99 dB, while the signal-to-noise ratio of the signal obtained solely via the averaging technique is only -44.29 dB. This paper presents a novel method for the optical detection of electrical signals inside integrated circuits, which can be applied to perform dynamic defect detection of integrated circuits in the future.

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    Pengcheng LIU, Yingqi MA, Jianwei HAN. Optical detection method of electrical signals inside integrated circuits based on lock-in amplifier[J]. Optics and Precision Engineering, 2022, 30(18): 2178

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    Paper Information

    Category: Modern Applied Optics

    Received: Mar. 25, 2022

    Accepted: --

    Published Online: Oct. 27, 2022

    The Author Email: MA Yingqi (myq@nssc.ac.cn)

    DOI:10.37188/OPE.20223018.2178

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