Abstract: A design analysis workstation for performing design analysis of integrated circuits provides facilities for extracting design and layout information from digital image-mosaics captured during deconstruction of an integrated circuit. The design analysis workstation enables propagation of signal information from an annotation object having a signal property to at least one connected annotation object in order to point to errors in the design analysis.

Abstract: A method of imaging an integrated circuit using a focused ion beam system is presented. According to the method an integrated circuit is imaged in plan-view using a focused ion beam system. Circuit information is then extracted absent processing. In another embodiment, a method and system for imaging an entire IC automatically without removing the IC from the imaging system and requiring minimal operator intervention is presented. The method employs a focused ion beam system to image an exposed layer of an integrated circuit and then to etch a portion of the exposed layer in situ. Imaging and etching are repeated until substantially the entire integrated circuit is imaged. A processor is used to assemble the layers into a three-dimensional topography of the integrated circuit. Because of known relationships between layers, the mosaicing is facilitated and the final topography is more reliable than those produced by currently known computer implemented methods.