Timing high-speed microprocessor circuits using picosecond imaging circuit analysis

IBM Research has developed a time resolved imaging technique, Picosecond Imaging Circuit Analysis (PICA) [1], which uses single photon events to analyze signals in modern microprocessors on a picosecond time scale. This paper will describe the experimental setup as well as the data management software. A case study of a particularly hard debug problem on a state of the art microprocessor will demonstrate the application of the PICA method.