Stress-induced voids present a serious reliability problem in the integrated-circuit industry for near-micrometer technologies. Reliability degradation has been previously evaluated from the viewpoint of open circuits caused by the mechanism of stress-induced voiding. We present a study of the effect of stress-induced voids on electromigration in 1.25-μm AlSiCu metal runners over a wide range of temperatures and void size/density. Median time to fail decreases with increasing void size and density, except for cases of severe voiding where metal microstructure strongly influences failure. For void sizes ≤25% of the linewidth, failure rates remain low, implying that acceptable reliability may still be achieved for relatively low levels of voiding. Failure rates increase with void size up to 50% of the linewidth and then saturate. These results indicate that provided the time for an open circuit due to stress voiding alone exceeds the operational life of the device, then the primary reliability degradation of stress-voided metallization will result from electromigration.
The COM2 SiGe modular BiCMOS technology has been developed to allow efficient design and manufacturing of digital, mixed-signal, and RF integrated circuits, as well as enabling system-on-chip (SOC) integration. The technology is based on the 0.16pm COM2 digital CMOS process which features 1.5V NMOS and PMOS transistors with 2.4nm gate oxide, 0.135pm gate length, and up to 7 metal levels. Technology enhancement modules including dense SRAM, SiGe NPN bipolar transistor, and a variety of passive components have been developed to allow the COM2 technology to be cost-effectively optimized for a wide range of applications.
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