Effects of pulsed current on electromigration lifetime

Author

Lim, M.K. ; Gan, C.L. ; Tan, T.L. ; Ee, Y.C. ; Ng, C.M. ; Zhang, B.C. ; Tan, J.B.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Mater. Sci. & Eng., Nanyang Technol. Univ., Singapore

fYear

2008

fDate

7-11 July 2008

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

6

Abstract

Asymmetrical Cu interconnect structure, where one end of the metal-2 (M2) test line is connected to M1 while the opposite end is connected to M3, was subjected to very long periods of bipolar pulsed current (i.e. 2, 16 and 48 hours) in this study. The median-time-to-failure (t₅₀) of the samples was found to depend on the direction of electron current in the first half-period, and t₅₀ of samples that were subjected to direct current (D.C.) that flow upstream or downstream. Bipolar pulsed current stressed samples showed improvement in lifetimes as compared to that of D.C. stressed samples only when the half-period of bipolar pulsed current was shorter than the t₅₀ of D.C. stressed samples.

Keywords

electromigration; integrated circuit interconnections; Cu; DC stressed samples; asymmetrical copper interconnect structure; bipolar pulsed current; electromigration lifetime; median-time-to-failure; metal-2 test line; Copper; Current density; Dielectric materials; Electromigration; Integrated circuit interconnections; Life testing; Materials reliability; Materials science and technology; Stress; System testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits, 2008. IPFA 2008. 15th International Symposium on the

Conference_Location

Singapore

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2039-1

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-2040-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IPFA.2008.4588157

Filename

4588157