Temperature-Humidity Acceleration of Metal-Electrolysis Failure in Semiconductor Devices

“…The humidity effect can be evaluated with a humidity test [28]. With these types of controls, the Bell System has recently been using silicone-molded discrete transistors with reliability comparable to that of the sealed prototypes.…”

Section: The Barn-lad Sealed-junction (Blsj) Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A recent comparison [28] of device-test results with data relating the surface conductivity of an insulating material to the ambient relative humidity indicates a more precise method for relating accelerated-humidity test results to expected life in field operating conditions. Details are shown in Appendix C. This provides a much more satisfactory technique for establishing minimum requirements on encapsulating materials i n relation to the severity of the expected environment.…”

Section: Reliability Of Blsj Detlicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, data [28] have come to light regarding changes in surface resistivity of insulators due to the effect of humidity. Such surface resistivity could be expected to be related inversely to electrolytic current flow between biased conductors and, therefore, directly to device time-to-failure due to this mechanism.…”

Section: Further Effects Of Screens or Burn-inmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The reliability of semiconductor devices in the bell system

Peck¹,

Zierdt²

1974

Proc. IEEE

102

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Abstracf-The history of reliability of semiconductor devices in the Bell System is a story of sequential application of principlesfirst, of reliability-enhancing processing principles, which are applied in the absence of completely knowledgeable design and testing control; second, of testing-control principles, which follow growing knowledge of process defects and their susceptibility to exposure by test; third, of ,design-control principles, which derive from mature processing and the essentially automatic elimination of workmanship defects. These principles were generally applied to the design and reliability technologies of successive decades of semiconductor-device manufacture.The 1950's saw the development of new device designs with no really severe reliability requirements; a history of this period shows, in fact, that semiconductor devices were better than reasonable testing specifications could prove they were; although one of the reliability advances of that period was promoted by Bell Laboratoriesthe use of a sampling technique which provided the user a statistical guarantee of the reliability he was buying.The 1960's saw the implementation of, first, the manufacture of diffused devices capable of high-stress testing and, second, the use of high-stress burn-in and life-testing controls which were rigorously relatable to expected reliability at the low stress of application. The motivating forces behind this high-stress testing were the need for low-failure-rate devices and the recognition that such failure rates, of the order of 0.001 percent per thousand hours, could not be proved by life tests at the stresses of the application.The technology of the 1970's is that of the beam-lead sealedjunction device, representing elimination by design of the major failure mechanisms of the devices of the 1960's. Although the elimination of the need for a hermetic seal raised the additional need for demonstration of the ability of a device and its plastic coating to survive in a high-humidity environment, this demonstration was also found to be amenable to physically based relationships between humidity and temperature conditions and device life.The successful development of relationship between effective device test requirements and system life objectives is attributed to the Bell System interrelationships by which the device designer is responsible both to the user (the system designer), with whom he has agreed upon a reliability objective, and to the device manufacturing organization, to which he owes the most economical combination of processes, process controls, and h a l testing requirements to meet the system objective.T I The possibility of error or confusion becomes greater when dealing this slow-but-sure procedure are as follows:with small fractions like 0.001 percent, and the accepted failure-rate term in the Bell System has become the failure unit, or FIT, equal to one fail-1) The extremely rapid pace of technology changes, reure in 10' device-hours. Where a distinction is made between removals quiring r...

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“…of the electrolyte in the gap, tG the gap thickness, rH the radius of the pinhole (anode) and r the radius of the expanding corrosion hole centered around the pinhole, then the resistance increase is given by dR -G dr/2irrtG [2] Further, the incremental charge, equivalent to the [5]…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Corrosion of Aluminum Metallization Through Flawed Polymer Passivation Layers; In-Situ Microscopy

Will

Janora

McMullen

et al. 1987

25th International Reliability Physics Symposium

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Aluminum corrosion in a polymer-coated circuit model was studied using in-situ microscopy coupled with time-lapse video recording.Pinholes in the polymer coating and exposure to water with bias voltage of 40V applied between adjacent aluminum tracks resulted in fast anode corrosion, accompanied by gas evolution. A mathematical model is developed that is in good agreement with the observed current-time relationship. The rate of corrosion is controlled by the resistance of a 6000A thick water film occupying the space of the corroded Al film between wafer and polymer coating.A tentative corrosion mechanism is proposed.

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Temperature-Humidity Acceleration of Metal-Electrolysis Failure in Semiconductor Devices

Cited by 34 publications

References 2 publications

Compound semiconductor activation energy in humidity

Compound semiconductor activation energy in humidity

The reliability of semiconductor devices in the bell system

Corrosion of Aluminum Metallization Through Flawed Polymer Passivation Layers; In-Situ Microscopy

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