Accelerated Stress Test Assessment of Through-Silicon Via Using RF Signals

Author

Okoro, Chukwudi ; Kabos, P. ; Obrzut, Jan ; Hummler, Klaus ; Obeng, Yaw S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Semicond., Nat. Inst. of Stand. & Technol., Gaithersburg, MD, USA

Volume

60

Issue

6

fYear

2013

fDate

Jun-13

Firstpage

2015

Lastpage

2021

Abstract

In this paper, radio frequency signal is demonstrated as an effective probe for assessing the effect of thermal cycling on the reliability of through-silicon vias (TSVs) in stacked dies. It is found that the RF signal integrity in TSV daisy chain, particularly its transmission characteristics, degrades considerably with extended thermal cycling, because of the formation and the growth of voids. Early failures are observed in the reliability analysis of the TSV daisy chain and are attributed to processing-related variability across the wafer. However, the maximum failure rate is found to occur at 500 thermal cycles, which is attributed to the initiation of defects and their subsequent propagation.

Keywords

integrated circuit reliability; integrated circuit testing; life testing; three-dimensional integrated circuits; RF signal integrity; TSV daisy chain; TSV reliability; extended thermal cycling; radiofrequency signal; thermal cycling effect; through-silicon via accelerated stress test assessment; through-silicon via reliability; transmission characteristics; Failure analysis; radio-frequency (RF); thermal cycling; through-silicon via (TSV);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TED.2013.2257791

Filename

6515167