Introduction of a Novel Sample Preparation Technique for the Failure Analysis of Silicon Integrated Photonics Modules

Silicon photonics is a disruptive technology that aims for monolithic integration of photonic devices onto the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology platform to enable low-cost high-volume manufacturing. Since the technology is still in the research and development phase, failure analysis plays an important role in determining the root cause of failures seen in test vehicle silicon photonics modules. The fragile nature of the test vehicle modules warrants the development of new sample preparation methods to facilitate subsequent non-destructive and destructive analysis methods. This work provides an example of a single step sample preparation technique that will reduce the turnaround time while simultaneously increasing the scope of analysis techniques.