An Integrated Experimental and Computational System for the Thermal Characterization of Complex Three-Dimensional Submicron Electronic Devices.

This work presents the creation of a coupled analysis engine and experimental system capable of fully characterizing the thermal behavior of complex, 3-D, active, submicron, electronic devices. First, the surface temperature field of an activated device is non-invasively measured with submicron spatial resolution. Next, the thermal conductivity of each thin-film layer composing the device is measured and a numerical model is built using these values. The measured temperature distribution map is then used as input for an ultra-fast inverse computational solution to fully characterize the thermal behavior of the complex 3-D device. By bringing together measurement and computation, it becomes possible for the first time to non-invasively extract the 3-D thermal behavior of nanoscale embedded features that cannot otherwise be accessed. The power of the method was demonstrated by verifying that it can extract details of interest of a representative MOSFET device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]