Thermal Test

Technical Activity Committee on THERMAL TESTING

TAC Co-Chair:  Bernard COURTOIS, Bernard.Courtois@imag.fr
Marta Rencz,rencz@eet.bme.hu

Decreasing dimensions of ICs and increasing density of packages make thermal issues more and more important. The scope of this TAC is to enable the exploration of thermal tools, mechanisms, sensors in view to implement Design for Thermal Testability.

With silicon microtechnology, we intend to realize electrical networks: these are the integrated circuits. This goal however can never be obtained solely – a thermal network is also generated necessarily. The electrical parts dissipate heat, this is the source of the thermal network. As a result, the temperature of the chip increases, changing the electrical parameters. In some cases, this can even result in burning out the elements. With the decreasing chip feature sizes and package dimensions, with the increasing integration density, the heat production per unit volume increases – continuously enlarging the severity of these problems.

This is why during the design of an integrated circuit concentrating only to the electrical operation is not sufficient any more. Today, we have to keep in hand the thermal network as well, overheating and electrical-thermal cross couplings have to be impeded.

We need methods to calculate and measure the temperature distribution on the chip.

According to recent statistics, the largest part of field detected failures are originated from overheating, due to inappropriate thermal design.

Thermally originated malfunctions can be prevented by on-line thermal monitoring. This can be accomplished by thermal sensors integrated in the chip, connected to an evaluator and actuator circuitry.

The above mentioned important subjects are not appropriately represented in Conferences, Workshops, Technical Journals today. The only existing forum to discuss these subjects is the THERMINIC Workshop, created by the chairs in 1995. Recently, several Conferences and Workshops like the VLSI Test Symposium, the IOLT, the MCM Test and the ETW Workshops have added the thermal testing topic to the list of issues to be addressed.

This TAC has held 8 workshops and has organized a panel at the VLSI Test Symposium in 1997 to discuss thermal testing issues from various viewpoints. Also, a Special Issue of IEEE Design & Test of Computers on Design and Test of MEMS has been organized (Q4 1999).

References

    1. Proceedings of the THERMINIC Workshops, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002.
    2. Special Issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 1995)
    3. Sensors and Actuators A-Physical, Vol. A55 N°1, July 1996.
    4. Special Issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 1995), Microelectronics Journal, Vol. 28, N° 3, March 1997.
    5. Special Issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 1996), IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems, Vol. 5, N°3, September 1997.
    6. Special Issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 1996), Microelectronics Journal, Vol. 29, N° 3-4, April-May 1998
    7. Special issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 1997), Sensors and Actuators A-physical, Vol. A71, N° 1-2, November 1998.
    8. Special issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 1997), IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology – Part A, Vol. 21, N° 3, September 1998.
    9. Special Issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 1998), Microelectronics Journal, Vol. 30, N°11, November 1999
    10. Special issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 1998), IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies, Vol. 22, N° 2, June 1999
    11. Special Issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 1999), Microelectronics Journal, Vol. 31, N° 9-10, September-October 2000
    12. Special issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 1999), IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies, Vol. 23, N° 3, September 2000
    13. Special Issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 2000), Microelectronics Journal, Vol. 32, N°10-11, October-November 2001
    14. Special issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 2000), IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies, Vol. 24, N°4, December 2001
    15. Special issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 2000), Transactions of the ASME, Journal of Electronic Packaging, Vol. 123, N°4, December 2001
    16. Special issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 2001), Microelectronics Journal, to appear in 2002
    17. Special issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 2001), IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies, to appear in 2002
    18. Special issue on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Microstructures (THERMINIC Workshop 2001), Transactions of the ASME, Journal of Electronic Packaging, to appear in 2002

Upcoming conferences and symposia

IEEE International Symposium on On-Line Testing and Robust System Design (IOLTS) 2024

Submission of title, abstract, and author list: 23 February, 2024
Final Paper Submission: 29 February, 2024
Author Notification: 09 April, 2024
Conference Dates: July 3 – 5, 2024

IEEE European Test Symposium (ETS) 2024
Paper registration: December 8, 2023
Paper PDF upload: December 16, 2023
Notification: February 16, 2024
Conference: May 20-24, 2024

IEEE VLSI Test Symposium (VTS) 2024
Paper registration: October 9, 2023
Paper PDF upload: October 15, 2023
Questions to authors: December 9, 2023
Submission of rebuttal: December 14, 2023
Notification: December 23, 2023
Camera-ready upload: February 03, 2024
Conference: April 22-24, 2024