Instrumentation effects on the detection of resistance transients during accelerated testing of VLSI interconnects

Some researchers have proposed using noise as an interconnect reliability tool. Often, however, noise spectral density has been used without concurrently examining the fluctuations in the time-domain which generate the noise spectra. Recently, the presence of abrupt changes in resistance (ACR´s) has been documented in VLSI interconnects at accelerated stressing conditions. These ACR´s are investigated here to identify their impact on typical spectra produced in noise measurements. Three results are reported in this paper, First, the presence of ACR´s usually coincides with generation of 1/ℱ² noise. Second, the location of the ACR in the Fast Fourier Transform window is significant. Third, cross-correlation techniques can be used to identify ACR´s in the time-domain signal