A method to reduce the peak current density in a via

A new method to alleviate the current crowding problems in the via connect of VLSI is presented. Current crowding in advanced metal systems may cause long term reliability problems for integrated circuits because the mean time to failure due to electromigration decreases as the maximum current density increases. The FCAP3 program (three-dimensional Poisson equation solving program) is used to study current flow in three-dimensional metal structures such as vias.