The International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis (ISTFA) 2018 is co-located with the International Test Conference (ITC) 2018, October 28 to November 1, in Phoenix, Arizona, USA at the Phoenix Convention Center. The theme for the November 2018 conference is "Failures Worth Analyzing." While technology advances fast and the market demands the latest and the greatest, successful companies strive to stay competitive and remain profitable.

This volume features the latest research and practical data from the premier event for the microelectronics failure analysis community. The papers cover a wide range of testing and failure analysis topics of practical value to anyone working to detect, understand, and eliminate electronic device and system failures.

This volume features the latest research and practical data from the premier event for the microelectronics failure analysis community. The papers address the symposium's theme, Exploring the Many Facets of Failure Analysis.

Failures caused by electrostatic discharges (ESD) constitute a major problem concerning the reliability and robustness of integrated circuits and electronic systems. This book summarizes the many diverse methodologies aimed at ESD protection and shows, through a number of concrete studies, that the best approach in terms of robustness and cost-effectiveness consists of implementing a global strategy of ESD protection. ESD Protection Methodologies begins by exploring the various normalized test techniques that are used to qualify ESD robustness as well as characterization and defect localization methods aimed at implementing corrective measures. Due to the increasing complexity of integrated circuits, it is important to be able to provide a simulation in which the implemented ESD protection strategy provides the desired protection, while not harming the performance levels of the circuit. Therefore, the main features and difficulties related to the different types of simulation, finite element, SPICE-type and behavioral, are then studied. To conclude, several case studies are presented which provide real-life examples of the approaches explained in the previous chapters and validate a number of the strategies from component to system level. - Provides a global ESD protection approach from component to system, including both the proposal of investigation techniques and predictive simulation methodologies - Addresses circuit and system designers as well as failure analysis engineers - Provides the description of specifically developed investigation techniques and the application of the proposed methodologies to real case studies