E-Beam Probing: An IC Design Debug Success Story

By providing timing information and throughput as device complexities and operating frequencies were rapidly increasing, the e-beam prober, which integrated CAD navigation and waveform measurements while enabling the user to almost disregard the technology “under the hood,” was the required tool for IC design debug from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. The history, successes, innovations, mistakes, and possible future of this workhorse tool are visited and described.