Barrier layer effect of tantalum on the electromigration in sputtered copper films on hydrogen silsesguioxane and SiO2

As IC devices scale down to the submicron level, the resistance-capacitance (RC) time delays are the limitation to circuit speed. A solution is to use low dielectric constant materials and low resistivity materials. In this work, the influence of underlying barrier Ta on the electromigration (EM) of Cu on hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) and SiO₂ substrates was investigated. The presence of a Ta barrier not only improves the adhesion between Cu and dielectrics, but also enhances the crystallinity of Cu film and improves the Cu electromigration resistance. The activation energy obtained suggests a grain boundary migration mechanism and the current exponent calculated indicates the Joule heating effect.     

Healing Effect of Controlled Anti‐Electromigration on Conventional and High‐Tc Superconducting Nanowires

The electromigration process has the potential capability to move atoms one by one when properly controlled. It is therefore an appealing tool to tune the cross section of monoatomic compounds with ultimate resolution or, in the case of polyatomic compounds, to change the stoichiometry with the same atomic precision. As demonstrated here, a combination of electromigration and anti‐electromigration can be used to reversibly displace atoms with a high degree of control. This enables a fine adjustment of the superconducting properties of Al weak links, whereas in Nb the diffusion of atoms leads to a more irreversible process. In a superconductor with a complex unit cell (La_2?x Ce_x CuO₄), the electromigration process acts selectively on the oxygen atoms with no apparent modification of the structure. This allows to adjust the doping of this compound and switch from a superconducting to an insulating state in a nearly reversible fashion. In addition, the conditions needed to replace feedback controlled electromigration by a simpler technique of electropulsing are discussed. These findings have a direct practical application as a method to explore the dependence of the characteristic parameters on the exact oxygen content and pave the way for a reversible control of local properties of nanowires.     

杂散电流环境下保护层内氯盐传输特性研究

采用电迁移锈蚀法对杂散电流环境下混凝土保护层中氯盐传输特性进行了研究。通过对四组试件在不同电流强度,不同通电时间情况下混凝土保护层内氯离子浓度的变化特征,重点分析了电场作用对保护层内氯离子传输进程和试件表面氯离子浓度的影响规律。结果表明,电场作用下保护层内氯离子浓度在数十小时内便从非稳态传输演变为稳态传输,传输效率较自由扩散高900多倍,但在稳态传输阶段氯离子浓度并非稳定不变,而是随通电时间增加整体呈下降趋势;保护层内氯离子达稳态传输前,混凝土表面氯离子浓度增长规律与一般氯盐环境中明显不同,其随通电时间增长以幂函数形式降低,随电流强度增加呈幂函数形式增长,且受通电时间的影响更为显著。     

铝硅合金互连线电迁移失效试验

随着微电子技术的发展,作为超大规模集成电路互连线的金属薄膜的截面积越来越小,其承受的电流密度急剧增加,电迁移引起的互连失效变得尤为突出.针对集成电路中金属互连线的电迁移现象,以Black方程为基础,对其进行了修正.并以铝硅合金互连线为研究对象,对其电迁移过程进行了详细的加速寿命试验研究,获取了修正后的Black方程中的相关参数,分析了不同环境温度、不同电流密度、不同初始电阻等因素对铝互连线电迁移的影响规律.结果表明,铝硅合金互连线的电迁移寿命与上述参数均成反比关系.     

金属互连线电迁移的影响因素

应用有限元分析软件ABAQUS,对金属互连线的电迁移过程进行了电热耦合仿真分析,比较了不同互连线材料、不同温度、不同层间介质等因素对互连线电迁移失效的影响. 结果表明,与铝硅合金互连线相比,在同样电流密度条件下,无论是电势梯度最大值还是热通量最大值,铜互连线的均高于铝互连线的,从而将加速互连线的电迁移;在一定的温度范围内,电流密度是影响互连线电迁移寿命的主要因素,而温度的变化对其影响较小;与SiO2相比,SiN作为层间介质能够防止互连线中的热聚集,有利于互连线热量的散发,从而对于缓解电迁移具有积极的作用.     

Oxygen stoichiometry and surface treatment effect on electromigration stability of high-T c Tl2Ba2CuO6+x superconductor

Electromigration stability of Tl₂Ba₂CuO_6+x ceramics is shown to decrease significantly when the material is treated in water vapor atmosphere. TheT _c decrease in these samples is accompanied by a resistance increase, while the Seebeck coefficient,S, remains unchanged. The authors conclude that the main effect comes from grain-boundary degradation under the water vapor treatment. For initial samples, electromigration stability strongly depends on the sample oxygen doping level and increases for materials with higher oxygen content. The effect is assumed to be due to the filling of interstitials in Tl-O layers by oxygen atoms.     

Electromigration effects in aluminum alloy metallization

An investigation of electromigration-induced failure in aluminum alloy films, with the major emphasis on aluminum-copper-silicon, was conducted. Flash evaporation was utilized for alloy deposition and yielded aluminum-copper films having electromigration resistance comparable to that of such films prepared by other techniques. Results for aluminum-copper-silicon and aluminum-copper were similar indicating the passive role of silicon in the presence of copper. Additions of four weight percent copper resulted in near-optimum electromigration resistance. In addition, hot-substrate deposition was beneficial in attaining greater lifetime. For films deposited on unheated substrates, or having lower copper contents, heat treatment seriously degraded electromigration resistance. Heat treatment effects were considered to be a consequence of copper redistribution. Lifetime decrease at large copper contents and possible saturation at large thicknesses were interpreted in terms of clustering of CuAl₂ precipitates. The superior reliability of copper-alloyed metallization when compared with aluminum or aluminum-silicon was clearly demonstrated. Lifetime improvement could be accounted for by the increased activation energy for the failure process in the aluminum-copper alloys.     

Microstructural effects on the 1/f α noise of thin aluminum based films

The 1 /f^α noise was measured on a variety of Al-based thin metal films with widely varying microstructure using an ac bridge technique. The magnitude of the current noise in response to a small, non-destructive ac signal was found to vary several orders of magnitude between 0.01 and 10 Hz and was correlated to the microstructural differ-ences of the films. These differences have a strong affect on film lifetimes as measured in an accelerated electromigration test. Variation in microstructure was accomplished by different deposition temperatures and annealing parameters, and verified using TEM micrographs. Following fabrication, the current noise magnitude was measured and found to be sensitive to film width and grain size. The use of this technique to discriminate differences in film microstructure is discussed along with the correlations between ex-cess noise and the quality of the thin film as a metallic interconnection.