Thermal Stress-Induced Open-Circuit Failure in Microelectronics Thin-Film Metallizations

Abstract

Very large-scale integration (VLSI) circuits have been achieved through the use of narrow metallizations in thin-film form. These on-chip interconnects play the key role in the overall chip size. With the ever-decreasing size of the microchip, narrow thin-film metallizations become the most important interconnects in large-scale integrated circuits. Among the large number of metals that have been investigated, aluminum is the most widely used interconnect material for VLSI devices because of its low resistivity, ability to form low-resistance contacts to p-type and n-type Si, and ease of deposition by either sputtering or evaporation. The trend to smaller circuitry is currently an active area of development.1,2