Modeling of failure and lifetime of thin-film metal conductors in integrated circuits

We also put forward an approach to modeling the electromigration and mechanical stresses in conductors containing impurities, such as copper. For the first time a model is proposed for calculating the effective charge of vacancies (ions), which is the major electromigration parameter, in grain boundaries of polycrystalline conductor structure. The dependence of effective charges of aluminum and copper ions in aluminum grain boundary on temperature and boundary texture is simulated numerically.