Reliability definitions and basic concepts

This tutorial presents an overview of the very basic concepts of reliability engineering. Definitions of commonly used terms as, for instance: failure, failure mechanism, failure mode and bath tub curve are given. Mathematical concepts like probability, failure functions and the most frequently used distribution functions are introduced and we discuss the mathematical treatment of failure data including data ranking, censoring and fitting. We present an overview of reliability testing methods including stress acceleration and screening, illustrated with various examples from hot carrier tests, time-dependent dielectric breakdown, ESD, electromigration, etc... This tutorial is a must for anyone starting in the field of reliability, but even for the experienced relaibility engineer or researcher it is worthwhile to return back to basics from time to time.

Robin Degraeve

Robin Degraeve received the M. Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Ghent, Belgium in 1992. He joined the R&D Laboratory of IMEC in Leuven, Belgium in the group Reliability, Electrical Characterization and Modeling, where he is currently working as a researcher. In 1998, he received his Ph.D. degree from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. His present interests and activities cover hot-carrier reliability issues in MOSFETs, the study of the physics of degradation and breakdown phenomena in oxides, the reliability of ultra-thin oxide layers for VLSI technologies, and the reliability issues in high-k materials as MOSFET gate insulators for future CMOS generations. He presented short courses at several conferences (IRPS, P2ID, ESREF, IIRW and UCPSS) and served as a member of the program committee of IRPS, IEDM, INFOS and SISC.