Non-equilibrium statistical theory for electromigration damage

A non-equilibrium statistical theory for aging dissipative systems formed by atoms is developed and applied to electromigration damage in conductors. A modification of Black’s mean failure time is presented. We describe the experimental relationship between the initial rate of increase in the functional damage and the electric conductor lifetime. Also, for situations where electromigration damage is mainly due to heat dissipation caused by conduction inside the conductor, it was possible to obtain a mean-field theory which yields expressions (that agree with the experimental data) for the increase of resistance with the current stressing time, in test probes of different materials, and for the total volume of hillocks as a function of the current stressing time.