As semiconductor technology evolves, modern devices are designed with enhanced performance and capabilities, featuring more process layers, denser layouts, intricate circuitry, and highly sensitive gate structures—all within shrinking architectures. The growing structural complexity and shrinking feature dimensions of modern devices make identifying and analyzing defects and failures, whether introduced during manufacturing or arising from use, significantly more challenging during failure analysis.

An important physical failure analysis technique for imaging failure mechanisms on a die is deprocessing, also known as delayering. This process involves the controlled removal and exposure of each individual FAB process layer for detailed inspection. However, traditional chemical and mechanical polishing methods used for older, larger semiconductor nodes are no longer viable for the newer generation of technologies, which feature thinner, smaller, and more complex structures.