Reliability Investigation of GaAs IC Components

Reliability tests have been conducted on MESFETs, MIM capacitors, NiCr resistors, interconnect metallization, and ring oscillators fabricated using TriQuint's 1-micron depletion mode manufacturing process. The observed MTTF (median time to failure) for FETs is 80 hours at 290 degrees C channel temperature, with an activation energy of 1.6 eV. Parameter drift data from 1000 hour lifetests on FETs, NiCr resistors, interconnect metallization, and ring oscillators are presented. Also presented are results of ESD sensitivity tests on digital IC inputs.