Picosecond Imaging Circuit Analysis

A new all-optical method for non-invasively measuring the switching activity of silicon integrated circuits is described. The method, called Picosecond Imaging Circuit Analysis (PICA) meets current and future industry needs for probing the internal electrical activity of integrated circuits. The principles underlying PICA, and its current implementations are describe. Examples of the use of PICA to characterizing the gate level performance of integrated circuits, and the identification of faults in normally packaged, fully functional, integrated circuits are given