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Paper

TESTING March 17, 2026

A Novel Approach for Fault Detection and Failure Analysis of CMOS Copper Metal Stacks

Authors

Gregor Hieronymus Eberwein, Gianluca Aglieri Rinella, Daniela Bortoletto, Szymon Bugiel, Francesca Carnesecchi, Antonello Di Mauro, Pedro Vicente Leitao, Hartmut Hillemanns, Marc Alain Imhoff, Antoine Junique, Alex Kluge, Magnus Mager, Paolo Martinengo, Iaroslav Panasenko, Ivan Ravasenga, Felix Reidt, Valerio Sarritzu, Walter Snoeys, Miljenko Šuljić

Abstract

For the Inner Tracking System 3 (ITS3) upgrade, the ALICE experiment at CERN requires monolithic active pixel sensors of dimensions up to 97~mm$\,\times\,$266~mm, occupying a large fraction of a 300 mm wafer. To manufacture such a wafer-scale device, larger than the single design reticle size, stitching is employed. The MOnolithic Stitched Sensor (MOSS) is a prototype silicon pixel sensor of 14~mm$\,\times\,$259~mm size with the primary goal of understanding the stitching technique and yield. Given the large size, high yield is paramount for the ITS3 sensors, and an in-depth yield characterization was performed on these MOSS sensors. In a collaborative effort, the foundry adapted the metal stack to the requirements of the project, but recurrent fault signatures were discovered with various frequencies across all 20 wafers tested, and correlated through dedicated measurements and analyses. Following these findings, the foundry implemented a mitigation strategy to avoid the issue in the future. This article does not describe process details but concentrates on the measurements and analysis method.

Metadata

arXiv ID: 2603.16473
Provider: ARXIV
Primary Category: physics.ins-det
Published: 2026-03-17
Fetched: 2026-03-18 06:02

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