Electrical and optical localisation of leakage current and breakdown point in SiOC:H low-k dielectrics

This paper presents a novel methodology to observe the leakage current origin in SiOC:H low-$\kappa$ intermetallic dielectric as well as a method to localise electrically the breakdown point in usual comb/serpentine/comb structures. Our results indicate that high leakage current is a consequence of a global moisture-induced SiOC:H dielectric modification and demonstrate that EMMI observations of such leakage current is possible. Besides, we have disclosed and validated a fast electrical breakdown localisation method fully compatible with automated test steps such as Parametric Test to track eventual weaknesses in reliability structures for instance.