Study of EM void nucleation and mechanic relaxation effects

In this paper the void formation during electromigration is characterized with the single standard via (SSV) and the innovative local sense structure (LSS). LSS allows the measurement of small resistance change before the final void formation. This has allowed to define a time nucleation for the void. The SSV has been used to study: side effect in the first phase (i.e. the “plateau”), the time to failure (TTF) and the void growth. The comprehension of all these phenomena will be fundamental for the future of interconnects reliability physics and lifetime prediction.