Total on-chip interconnect length has been increasing exponentially with technology scaling. Consequently, interconnect-driven design is an emerging trend in state-ofthe-art integrated circuits. Cu-based interconnect technology is expected to meet some of the challenges of technology scaling. However, Cu interconnects still pose a reliability concern due to electromigration-induced failure over...

New mission-critical applications, such as autonomous vehicles and life-support systems, set a high bar for the reliability of modern microprocessors that operate in highly challenging conditions. However, while cutting-edge integrated circuit (IC) technologies have intensified by providing remarkable reductions silicon area power consumption, they also introduce new challenges through complex ...

Early in the study of cuprate grain boundary junctions (GBJs) it was observed that the junctions’ characteristic voltage (IcRn) tended to scale, at least approximately, as J 1/2 c . To re-examine the cause of this effect we have measured IcRn as a function of the more complete GBJ oxygenation that can be achieved by ozone annealing and electromigration. While these enhanced oxidation techniques...

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An investigation has been carried out to determine the fundamental reliability unit of copper dual-damascene metallization. Electromigration experiments have been carried out on straight via-to-via interconnects in the lower metal (M1) and the upper metal (M2), and in a simple interconnect tree structure consisting of straight via-to-via line with an extra via in the middle of the line (a “dott...

Three-parameter lognormal distribution has been demonstrated for applications in electromigration data analysis, especially for Cu interconnect structures with insufficient redundancy. Examples are given on estimating parameter values from experimental data using the maximum likelihood method. Detailed analyses are presented on confidence bound estimations of the parameters and their propagatio...