In a circuit such as an integrated circuit (IC), a short circuit or related problem may occur due to various factors, including undesirable contact among interconnects in the integrated circuit or contact by a foreign matter with an interconnect. These conditions may result in a short circuit, a current leakage, or an imperfect contact defect in an integrated circuit, which can lead to malfunction or damage, or may in some circumstances destroy an integrated circuit.
In an example, a photodiode in a circuit may suffer a short in certain circumstances. In operation, a photodiode provides an output current in response to incident light energy on a surface of the photodiode. The output current through the photodiode may be triggered by an optical signal received from an optical transmission medium. A device for converting projected optical data or images into electrical signal data may utilize an array of photodiodes. In a circuit, a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) is a device that converts an input current to an output voltage, and a TIA may be utilized to convert input current that is received from a photodiode into an output voltage that is proportional to a magnitude of the input current. In one possible example, an apparatus or system may include a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) system, a variety of semiconductor laser diode with laser beam emission.
In an apparatus or system, a component such as a photodiode array may be very dense, with closely spaced elements. The photodiode array may provide current to inputs of multiple TIA channels, which act to convert the generated current into various voltage signals. In such an apparatus, photodiode lines connecting to the TIA channels may run closely together in the densely packed photodiode array, and as a result such lines may become shorted with each other. However, it may be very time consuming to check for short circuits in each such device, and, even if the characteristics of a device are evaluated, defects may be difficult to detect if the defects are intermittent or only create current leakage, rather than a creating a direct short.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds