Atomistic method for analysis of electromigration

The reliability of interconnects in modern integrated circuits is determined by the magnitude and direction of the effective valence for electromigration (EM). The effective valence depends on local atomistic configurations. In order to study EM on atomistic level an application of ab initio methods is a necessity. In this work a novel method for an ab initio calculation of the effective valence for electromigration is proposed and its application on the analysis of EM behavior is presented.