Investigation of high performance Edge Lifted Capacitors reliability for GaAs and GaN MMIC technology

Abstract

This paper reports extensive investigations of Edge Lifted Capacitors (ELC) and standard metal–insulator–metal (MIM) capacitors with different refractive index and thickness of Silicon Nitride (Si3N4) dielectric films. The wafer-level electrical measurements reveal size dependence of capacitances and breakdown voltages. Physical characterization was performed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to understand intrinsic properties of the studied films and failure-related cross sections were used to predict possible leakage mechanisms. Reliability testing of Human Body Model (HBM) and Machine Model (MM) electrostatic discharge (ESD), time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB), and biased high temperature accelerated stress testing (bHAST) were performed and will be reviewed for GaAs and GaN monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) applications.