The scanning electron microscope

SOUTHWOOD, England – Breaking phones is all well and good, but it’s finding out where, and how, faults occur as a result that builds reliability. Obvious physical breakages are easy to spot – a chipped casing here, a furled keypad there, but what happens when those cracks appear on one of the gates in a silicon chip? Or one of the myriad components on the numerous circuit boards inside a phone comes apart? That’s where the reliability labs analysis department comes into play. Resembling a science lab the place is packed with microscopes, and xray machine and a scanning electron microscope, which uses liquid nitrogen to clear the air before scanning, so no unwanted particles get scanned.