Effect of via/line temperature inhomogeneity on electromigration fast WLR results and how to get rid of inhomogeneities

• Conventional EM fWLR EM tests suffer from strong temperature inhomogeneities.
• As a consequence these tests tend to cause erroneous lifetimes.
• A new EM fWLR test system is presented.
• It reliably eliminates via/line temperature inhomogeneities for the first time.
• For any quantitative assessments temperature homogeneity is mandatory.

Electromigration fWLR tests lack validity because of unresolved temperature inhomogeneities in the test structures. A new system quantifies the undesirable impact of temperature inhomogeneities on lifetime results and demonstrates that temperature gradients can be completely avoided for any process/material change or process instability in any common technology.

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