Current Challenges of Cu Electromigration Reliability

In today's integrated circuit (IC), more than a kilometer of metal interconnects are required to build a single microprocessor, so that many billions of metal segments exist in each IC. These metal segments are a significant reliability concern due mainly to electromigration. This concern increases with each new generation of microprocessor, which requires the use of a larger number of narrower interconnects, stressed at increasing current densities. This tutorial will address the basics of electromigration and current routes for improved reliability.

Christine S. Hau-Riege

Christine S. Hau-Riege earned a B.S. (1996) and Ph.D. (2000) from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, during which she was awarded an NSF fellowship. She has since worked as a senior reliability engineer at Intel in Quality and Reliability in Hillsboro, OR, and is currently a senior device engineer at AMD in Technology and Reliability Development in Sunnyvale, CA. Her current interests focus on BEOL reliability. She has authored or co-authored more than 15 technical papers and 14 US patent applications