Using Ontologies in Failure Analysis

Abstract

Abstract Fault analysis is a complex task that requires engineers to perform various analyses to detect and localize physical defects in semiconductor devices. The process is knowledge intensive and must be precisely documented. In order to ensure unambiguous documentation, engineers must agree on a clearly defined terminology specifying methods, tools, physical faults and their electrical signatures among other things, and it must be stored in a way that is usable for both engineers and software. One possible solution to this challenge is to formalize domain knowledge as an ontology, a knowledge base designed to store terminological definitions. This paper discusses the development of an ontology for electronic device failure analysis that uses a logic-based representation. The latter ensures that terms are interpreted the same way by engineers and software systems, facilitating the automation of tasks such as text classification, information retrieval, and workflow verification.