Correlations between initial via resistance and reliability performance

Accelerated stressing and electromigration (EM) testing were conducted on W-plug via chains and Van der Pauw structures respectively. These populations were chosen to include a wide distribution of initial resistances R/sub 0/. The high-end of the R/sub 0/ distribution exhibited a higher early failure rate and a higher spread in EM time-to-fail distribution. Processes which produce tightly controlled time-zero via resistance distributions are more desirable for via reliability.