Electrical stress on film resistive structures on different substrates

One of the most important issues of resistors properties is the value stability under different electrical and non electrical influences. Mechanical and/or thermal stress together with the electrical one represent the main factors that have a major contribution in resistor value stability. With highly isolating and/or flexible substrates the devices become also susceptible to electrical stress, like for example Electro Static Discharge (ESD). In order to investigate the behavior at high current densities, a pulsed measurement technique was applied to the film resistive structures on different substrates. The analytical test technique of Transmission Line Pulsers (TLP) allows, on the basis of square pulses, the in-situ monitoring of the voltages and currents at the Device Under Test (DUT) during pulsing and helps to gain fundamental insights into the electrical behavior at higher current densities. In this work the analysis is made comparing thick- and thin- film resistors on different, rigid and flexible substrates, with single and multiple pulsing, showing the common behavior before, during and after pulsing.