The detection of early failures in electromigration (EM) and the complicated statistical nature of this important reliability phenomenon have been difficult issues to treat in the past. A satisfactory experimental approach for the detection and the statistical analysis of early failures has not yet been established. This is mainly due to the rare occurrence of early failures and difficulties in testing of large sample populations. Furthermore, experimental data on the EM behavior as a function of varying number of failure links are scarce. In this study, a technique utilizing large interconnect arrays in conjunction with the well-known Wheatstone Bridge is presented. Three types of structures with a varying number of Ti/TiN/Al(Cu)/TiN-based interconnects were used, starting from a small unit of five lines in parallel. A serial arrangement of this unit enabled testing of interconnect arrays encompassing 480 possible failure links. In addition, a Wheatstone Bridge-type wiring using four large arrays in each device enabled simultaneous testing of 1920 interconnects. In conjunction with a statistical deconvolution to the single interconnect level, the results indicate that the electromigration failure mechanism studied here follows perfect lognormal behavior down to the four sigma level. The statistical deconvolution procedure is described in detail. Over a temperature range from 155 to 200 °C, a total of more than 75 000 interconnects were tested. None of the samples have shown an indication of early, or alternate, failure mechanisms. The activation energy of the EM mechanism studied here, namely the Cu incubation time, was determined to be Q=1.08±0.05 eV. We surmise that interface diffusion of Cu along the Al(Cu) sidewalls and along the top and bottom refractory layers, coupled with grain boundary diffusion within the interconnects, constitutes the Cu incubation mechanism.

The early failure issue in electromigration (EM) has been an unresolved subject of study over the last several decades. A satisfying experimental approach for the detection and analysis of early failures has not been established yet. In this study, a technique utilizing large interconnect arrays in conjunction with the well-known Wheatstone Bridge is presented. A total of more than 20 000 interconnects were tested. The results indicate that the EM failure mechanism studied here follows lognormal behavior down to the four sigma level.

Electromigration failure statistics and the origin of the log-normal standard deviation for copper interconnects were investigated by analyzing the statistics of electromigration lifetime and void size distributions at various stages during testing. Experiments were performed on 0.18 m wide Cu interconnects with tests terminated after certain amounts of resistance increase, or after a specified test time. The lifetime and void size distributions were found to follow log-normal distribution functions. The sigma values of these distributions decrease with increasing test time. The statistics of resistance-based void size distributions can be simulated by considering geometrical variations of the void shape. In contrast, the characteristics of time-based void size distributions require consideration of kinetic aspects of the electromigration process. The sigma values of lifetime distributions can be adequately simulated by combining the statistics of both types of void size distributions. Thus, a statistical correlation between electromigration lifetimes and void evolution was established. Using simulation to fit the experimental data, the parameters influencing the electromigration lifetime statistics were identified as variations in void sizes, geometrical and experimental factors of the electromigration experiment, and kinetic aspects of the mass transport process, such as differences in interface diffusivity between the lines. The latter is the result of variations in the copper microstructure at the cathode ends of the interconnects.

Electromigration (EM) failure statistics and the origin of the lognormal deviation (σ) for Cu interconnects have been investigated by analyzing the lifetime statistics and void size distributions at various stages during EM testing. Experiments were performed on 0.18 μm wide Cu interconnects with tests terminated after specific amounts of resistance increases, or after a specified test time. Void size distributions of resistance-based, as well as time-based EM tests were obtained using focused ion beam (FIB) microscopy. The lifetime and void size distributions were found to follow lognormal distribution functions. The σ values of EM lifetime and time-based void size distributions decrease with higher percentages of resistance increase, reaching an asymptotic value of σ ∼ 0.14. In contrast, σ values of resistance-based void size distributions are significantly smaller and do not show an obvious dependence on time. The statistics of resistance-based void size distributions can mainly be accounted for by geometrical variations of the void shape, while the statistics of time-based void size distributions requires consideration of kinetic aspects of the EM process. The σ values of EM lifetime distributions at long times can be simulated based on measured void size distributions, taking into account geometrical and experimental factors of EM. In contrast, for short times the statistics of initial void formation and the kinetics of interfacial mass transport have to be considered.

Water soluble polymers have been used for decades as mobility control agents for tertiary recovery processes. Viscosity is conferred by the large hydrated size of the individual high molecular weight polymer molecules; their single-molecule hydrated size is so large that it can rival the diameters of the pore throats conducting the fluid, and it is widely understood that there are permeability limits below which solutions of such polymers cannot transport well. Delineating exactly where these limits are remains challenging, and operators are left to use whatever anecdotal evidence is available to decide whether to inject polymer, and, if so, what type and molecular weight to use. A rule of thumb is that when the permeability of a rock falls below 100 millidarcys, transport can be problematic. We have developed processing techniques for laboratory tests to condition polymer solutions for injection into reservoir carbonate cores with permeabilities below 10 millidarcys and median pore radii below one micron. Shearing and tight filtration were used to reduce the maximum size of polymers in solution while retaining as much viscosity as possible. Subsequent filtration was used to quantitatively assess the plugging behavior of the product solution across a range of pore sizes smaller than those which conduct in the rock sample. Coreflood injectivity tests revealed the onset of face plugging as a function of average polymer size. Co-solvent was shown to dramatically improve the transport of sulfonated polyacrylamides when face plugging did not occur, and those improvements were mirrored in benchtop filtration data. This improvement came despite equal-or-better viscosity in the polymer solution, demonstrating that the co-solvent did not reduce the polymer's hydrated size and therefore most likely weakens inter-molecular associations in solution. In sum, the data indicate that permeability loss occurred by two mechanisms: simple mechanical plugging and progressive adsorption, likely mediated by inter-molecular entanglements. These two permeability reduction mechanisms should be rectified by different means.

Electromigration failure statistics and the origin of the lognormal standard deviation for copper interconnects were investigated by analyzing the statistics of electromigration lifetimes and void size distributions at various stages during testing. A statistical correlation between electromigration lifetimes and void evolution was established. Using simulation to fit the experimental data, the parameters influencing the electromigration lifetime statistics were identified as variations in void sizes, geometrical and experimental factors of the electromigration experiment, and kinetic aspects of the mass transport process, such as differences in the interface diffusivity between the lines.

With continuing scaling of Cu-based metallization, the electromigration ͑EM͒ failure risk has remained one of the most important reliability concerns for advanced process technologies. The main factors requiring attention are the activation energy related to the dominating diffusion mechanism, the current exponent as well as the median lifetimes and lognormal standard deviation values of experimentally acquired failure time distributions. In general, the origin and scaling behavior of these parameters are relatively well understood. However, the observation of strong bimodality for the electron up-flow direction in dual-inlaid Cu interconnects has added complexity. The failure voids can occur both within the via ͑"early" mode͒ or within the trench ͑"late" mode͒. Over the last few years, bimodality has been reported also in down-flow EM, leading to very short lifetimes due to small, slit-shaped voids under vias. These voids, requiring only a very limited amount of mass movement, are generally causing concerns with respect to long-term, reliable chip operation at elevated temperatures. For a more thorough investigation of the aforementioned early failure phenomena, specific test structures were designed based on the Wheatstone Bridge ͑WSB͒ technique. The use of these structures enabled an increase in the tested sample size past 800 000 for the 90 nm technology node, allowing a direct analysis of EM failure mechanisms at the single-digit ppm regime. Results indicate that down-flow EM can exhibit bimodality at very small percentage levels, not readily identifiable with standard testing methods. The activation energy for the down-flow early failure mechanism was determined to be 0.83Ϯ 0.01 eV. Within the small error bounds of this large-scale statistical experiment, this value is deemed to be significantly lower than the usually reported activation energy of 0.90 eV for EM-induced diffusion along Cu/SiCN interfaces. Due to the advantages of the WSB technique, we were also able to expand the experimental temperature range down to 150°C, coming quite close to typical operating conditions up to 125°C. As a result of the lowered activation energy, we conclude that the down-flow early failure mode may control the chip lifetime at operating conditions. This publication contains the first part of our large-scale statistical analysis of early failures in Cu EM. In the second part of this study, we will discuss the EM scaling behavior across 90, 65, and 45 nm technologies. In addition, short-length effects will be evaluated using our large-scale, statistical approach. Utilizing the advantages of the WSB technique, the total sample size will be increased past 1.2 million.

The Greater Burgan Field, first discovered in 1938, is the second largest oilfield in the world. Production from the Greater Burgan began in 1946 from the Wara reservoir via primary recovery. Recently, field-wide waterflood as a secondary recovery mechanism has been implemented. The current insight on the potential of hybrid low salinity water and polymer flooding in the Greater Burgan is presented. The goal of the Greater Burgan Study team in this enhanced oil recovery (EOR) evaluation program was to compare the benefits of using low salinity waterflood (LSW) and low salinity polymer (LSP) injection as tertiary oil recovery methods in the Wara sandstone reservoir of the Greater Burgan field. The efficacy of low salinity and low salinity polymer injection has been investigated in the laboratory and by conducting a series of single-well chemical tracer (SWCT) tests in one Wara producer. In the field trial carried out on Well A, three separate determinations of residual oil saturation (Sor) were made. The first SWCT test measured waterflood Sor after injecting a slug of high salinity water (HSW) that is compositionally comparable to the produced water utilized field-wide for waterflooding operations. The second and third SWCT tests measured the remaining oil saturation after LSW and LSP, respectively. Laboratory corefloods were also performed to evaluate LSW and LSP recoveries and their impacts on injectivity. The injection water salinity, injection design, oil viscosity, and polymer viscosity used in the laboratory experiments were identical to those used in the field SWCT tests. These SWCT test trial results establish a baseline waterflood Sor (i.e., after high salinity water injection) and show that further reductions in Sor may be achieved with low salinity waterflooding and low salinity polymer injection. The laboratory results showed no plugging or injectivity issues during LSW or LSP corefloods. Overall, LSW and LSP were shown to be technically workable tertiary processes in the Greater Burgan.