Debugging Signal Corruption in Scan Chain Using Phase Laser Voltage Imaging

Laser Voltage imaging (LVI) is an established and widely used technique for isolating scan chain failures, especially those that are stuck-at a particular state. Enhancements such as second harmonic mapping have been beneficial in detecting a fault that is not stuck, but caused a shift in duty-cycle of the injected signal. In this paper, we describe Phase LVI which is constructed by integrating a lock-in amplifier as an enhancement to LVI for studying the relative phases between scan flops. Additionally we showcase case studies of successful fault isolation using phase LVI, where traditional LVI techniques were not successful.