Mead Testing can offer you a highly specialised microsurgical cutting and etching service for your microelectronic devices. This technique works in lateral dimensions ranging from sub micron to several tens of microns, down to depths of a few microns.

We use a finely focused ion beam probe (based on a gallium liquid metal ion source) to remove precise quantities of material from the sample at a rate of typically one cubic micron per second. Materials including metals, ceramics, semiconductors, glasses and polymers may all be etched using this method. This method may be used for micro-sectioning on a very fine scale.

A 1 micron square window cut through the passivation on an IC