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One of the most common forms of cohesive failure observed in brittle thin film subjected to a tensile residual stress is channel cracking, a fracture mode in which through-film cracks propagate in the film. The crack growth rate depends on intrinsic film properties, residual stress, the presence of reactive species in the environments, and the precise film stack.

M.A. Hussein and Jun He (Intel Corporation)

IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing, vol. 18, No. 1, p.69-85, 2005

In this work, we explain how the manufacturing technology and reliability for advanced interconnects is impacted by the choice of metallization and interlayer dielectric (ILD) materials. The replacement of aluminum alloys by copper, as the metal of choice at the 130nm technology node, mandated notable changes in integration, metallization, and patterning technologies. Those changes directly impacted the reliability performance of the interconnect system. Although further improvement in interconnect performance is being pursued through utilizing progressively lower dielectric constant (low-k) ILD materials from one technology node to another, the inherent weak mechanical strength of low-k ILDs and the potential for degradation in the dielectric constant during processing, pose serious challenges to the implementation of such materials in high volume manufacturing. We will consider the cases of two ILD materials; carbon-doped silicon dioxide (CDO) and low-k spin-on-polymer to illustrate the impact of ILD choice on the process technology and reliability of copper interconnects. preprint pdf 2.49 MB

Flip-chip plastic ball grid array (FC-PBGA) packages are widely used in high performance components. However, its die back is normally under tensile stress at low temperatures. This paper presents a probabilistic mechanics approach to predict the die failure rate in the FC-PBGA qualification process. The methodology consists of three parts:

Ting Y. Tsui, Andrew J. McKerrow, and Joost J. Vlassak

Published in the Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 54 (5), 887-903 (2006)

Abstract – Organosilicate glass (OSG) is a material that is used as a dielectric in advanced integrated circuits. It has a network structure similar to that of amorphous silica where a fraction of the Si-O bonds has been replaced by organic groups. It is well known from prior work that OSG is sensitive to subcritical crack growth as water molecules in the environment are transported to the crack tip and assist in rupturing Si-O bonds at the crack tip. In this study, we demonstrate that exposure of an OSG containing film stack to water prior to fracture results in degradation of the adhesion of the film stack. This degradation is the result of the diffusion of water into the film stack. We propose a quantitative model to predict adhesion degradation as a function of exposure time by coupling the results of independent subcritical crack growth measurements with diffusion concentration profiles. The model agrees well with experimental data and provides a novel method for measuring the water diffusion coefficient in film stacks that contain OSG. This study has important implications for the reliability of advanced integrated circuits.

Jun He and Guanghai Xu (Intel Corporation)

Zhigang Suo (Harvard University)