Guest Editorial TDMR IIRW Special Section

Abstract

The IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop (IIRW) is a unique event that takes place every year at the beautiful Fallen Leaf Lake, Tahoe, CA, USA. This workshop brings together reliability engineers and researchers from around the world, to exchange ideas over four days in a relaxed, friendly, and informal environment. The workshop focuses on the recent advances in research concerning semiconductor device reliability and its different challenges. Topics include transistor reliability [time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB), bias temperature instability (BTI), hot carrier (HC)], electromigration, chip-to-package interactions, emerging memory reliability, and many others. In 2018, IIRW hosted the inaugural Reliability Experts Forum where dozens of reliability experts around the world gathered in a day-long discussion to debate about the different reliability challenges facing advanced field-effect transistors (FETs). The first panel discussion focused on HC degradation. Moderated by Stanislav Tyaginov from imec, the HC discussion was initiated by Dr. Stew Rauch, presenting the energy-driven framework to explain hot carrier degradation. Next, Dr. Jen-Hao Lee presented an overview of HC degradation and self-heating challenges in advanced FinFETs, followed by Dr. Miaomiao Wang who presented HC effects in advanced CMOS devices 5 nm and beyond. Finally, Dr. Chetan Prasad from Intel presented some future areas of focus for HC degradation. The second panel was moderated by Prof. Luca Larcher and focused on TDDB. This discussion was started by Dr. Joe McPherson, who presented the field-driven electrochemical model, which was followed by Dr. Ernest Wu and a presentation of the energy-driven TDDB model and the clustering model. Dr. Chetan Prasad then presented an overview of TDDB in high-k advanced technology nodes. This panel also included Prof. Alex Shluger who presented an atomic level description of the defects and their generation process as it related to TDDB. Lastly, Prof. Kin Leong Pey presented his innovative work in physical characterization of dielectric breakdown. The last panel discussion focused on BTI and was moderated Dr. Jason Campbell. The discussion started with Dr. James Stathis, who introduced the topic and the various physics models that aim to explain BTI. Next, the reaction-diffusion based framework and BAT tool were presented by Prof. Souvik Mahapatra. Then, Prof. Tibor Grasser presented the defect centric framework followed by a detailed discussion of the two frameworks and their implications. Dr. Gennadi Bersuker then discussed the role of electron trapping/detrapping in BTI. Finally, Dr. Tanya Nigam talked about BTI from a circuit perspective, where she showed that no frequency dependence has been observed up to multiple Gigahertz of frequency. All three panel discussions simulated great discussions with the audience and brought up the points of consensus and differences in every topic, which helped provide many clarifications to different concepts.