Calibration and optimization of interconnect based MEMS test structures for predicting thermo-mechanical stress in metallization

Author

Dos Santos, Jorge M M ; Horsfall, Alton B. ; Pina, Jose C Prata ; Wright, Nick G. ; O´Neill, Anthony G. ; Wang, Kai ; Soare, Sorin M. ; Bull, Steve J. ; Terry, Jonathan G. ; Walton, Anthony J. ; Gundlach, Alan M. ; Stevenson, J. Tom M

Author_Institution

Sch. or Electr., Electron. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Newcastle, UK

fYear

2004

fDate

25-29 April 2004

Firstpage

255

Lastpage

258

Abstract

We have shown that the in-plane stress in aluminium metallisation can be observed using a rotating beam sensor structure. This shows that the extrinsic stress from the mismatch in expansion coefficient between the aluminium and the silicon substrate dominates over the compressive stress from the sputter growth. Sintering the layers at temperatures above 150°C reduces this compressive stress due to the action of creep. Calibration of the rotation of the device has been undertaken by direct comparison to high resolution x-ray diffraction measurements and these show that the sensor has a resolution better than 2.8MPa.

Keywords

X-ray diffraction; aluminium; creep; integrated circuit interconnections; integrated circuit metallisation; integrated circuit reliability; integrated circuit testing; stress analysis; 150 C; Al-Si; calibration; creep; expansion coefficient mismatch; extrinsic stress; high resolution x-ray diffraction measurements; interconnect based MEMS test structures; metallization; optimization; rotating beam sensor structure; sintering; thermo-mechanical stress; Aluminum; Calibration; Compressive stress; Metallization; Micromechanical devices; Silicon; Temperature sensors; Testing; Thermal stresses; Thermomechanical processes;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Reliability Physics Symposium Proceedings, 2004. 42nd Annual. 2004 IEEE International

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8315-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RELPHY.2004.1315333

Filename

1315333