Thermal characterisation and failure analysis of MMIC components by thermo-reflectance imaging

Thermo-reflectance (TR) imaging for thermographic purposes in thermal characterisation and failure analysis is becoming a technique with increasing performance, relevance and fields of application despite the small scale of the effect and the consequently compulsory requirements for lock-in amplification. Whereas a classical benchmark case for TR imaging are structures in the range between the spatial resolution limit of optical and infrared (IR) wavelength devices (as e.g. HEMT-structures), there is a lot of potential to use it for failure analytical purposes with more relaxed requirements on absolute measurement values. We show, based on a simple TR setup, the performance and limits of the technique, apply it to typical terminal metals used in electronics for calibration and benchmark the method on some typical use cases and also against IR-based thermographic methods where meaningful.