Accelerated temperature testing of transistors does not cause excess flicker noise

Abstract

Electrical noise measurement analysis has been applied in reliability screening of semiconductor devices. Normally it is expected that during accelerated testing reactions increase in composition of device materials causes early failures through the process of defect production. An increase in defects is further expected to result in an increase in the noise of semiconductor devices. Accelerated temperature testing of sample of indegenous NPN transistors was done and noise was measured after certain durations of test time. No appreciable change was observed in the noise level (mainly flicker or 1/noise) even though the devices reached the stage of complete failure. This indicates that defects produced by accelerated temperature testing are not noise generators. X-ray radiography and SEM analysis study has been done for completely failed devices.