Abstract: To detect residual glass, such as appears at semiconductor chip pads and via holes during the fabrication of alumina/glass ceramic substrates that are used as supports for the semiconductor devices, the glass used for forming the ceramic substrates is doped with a rare earth oxide. During the manufacturing process, the ceramic structures are irradiated after firing with radiation of wavelengths in the range 350-500 nanometers to induce the glass to fluoresce, thereby revealing the residual glass on the surface of the metallic interconnector pads.

Abstract: A system for detecting and identifying the composition of a material, such as semiconductor wafers and chips, subject to one or more stages of processing. The material is laser irradiated to induce molecular fluorescence with means to detect the decay rate of the fluorescence. The decay rate is then compared with a decay record of fluorescence of acceptable modifications of the material, inclusive of amalgamated contaminants or impurities (e.g. doped regions) to determine the state of the modification of the material.

Abstract: A method of inspecting defective manufactured units and determining for any selected combination of defect categories the respective probable number of units having only a defect in each category of the selected combination of categories, and also the yield loss due to the selected combination of categories. The defect categories are arranged in an ordered sequence. Each unit of a sample of the manufactured units is inspected for the presence of a defect in each successive one of the ordered sequence of defect categories. As soon as it is determined that an inspected unit has a defect in a particular category, all further inspection of the unit is omitted and the unit is not inspected for the presence of defects in the subsequent categories of the sequence. From the resulting data there is determined for the selected combination of defect categories the respective probable number of units having only a defect in each category of the selected combination of categories and no defect in other categories.