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4 - Stress Evolution and Damage Formation in Confined Metal Lines under Electric Stressing

1D Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2022

Paul S. Ho ,
Chao-Kun Hu ,
Martin Gall  and
Valeriy Sukharev
Paul S. Ho
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Chao-Kun Hu
Affiliation:
IBM T J Watson Research Center, New York
Martin Gall
Affiliation:
GlobalFoundries
Valeriy Sukharev
Affiliation:
Siemens Business
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Summary

The momentum exchange between lattice atoms and conduction electrons together with the stress gradient along the metal wire embedded into the rigid confinement are two major driving forces for electromigration-induced evolution of stress and vacancy concentration. The growth of mechanical stress causes an evolution of a variety of defects that are inevitably present in the metal, leading to void formation. It affects the electrical properties of the interconnect. In order to estimate the time to failure caused by voiding, the kinetics of stress evolution should be resolved until the first void is nucleated. Then the analysis of the void size evolution should be performed in order to trace changes in resistances of individual voided lines and vias. In this chapter, we review the major results that have been achieved with the 1D phenomenological EM model. We demonstrate its capability to predict the transient and steady-state distributions of the vacancy concentration and the hydrostatic stress, a void nucleation, and its growth, and also a drift of small voids along a metal wire. Despite its simplified nature, the 1D model is capable of addressing the confinement effect of ILD/IMD dielectric on EM-induced degradation, and also the effect of metal grain structure.

Keywords

stressvacancydiffusionvoidKorhonen’s equationnucleation timecritical stressmicrostructurediffusion barriersgrain boundaries
Type
Chapter
Information
Electromigration in Metals
Fundamentals to Nano-Interconnects
 , pp. 80 - 126
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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