Manufacturers of high-end semiconductor electronic products used in consumer, industrial, and military applications have long relied on precise testing methodologies to identify the location of defects such as voids, cracks, and the delamination of different layers within a microelectronic device, also known as a microchip. Manufacturers also employ scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM), a noninvasive and nondestructive ultrasonic testing method, which became an industry standard to detect and analyze flaws during various chip-production steps and in the final quality inspection after packaging.

In addition, SAM is often used as a failure analysis method to identify a specific root-cause failure mechanism when a device fails during use.

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