1/f Noise measurements for faster electromigration characterization

The application of 1/f noise measurements to speed up electromigration (EM) testing and provide a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of electromigration in advanced microelectronics interconnects is investigated. It is shown that 1/f noise measurements can be used for early EM damage detection during EM stress, before any changes in the resistance of the sample are observable. Also, the temperature dependence of the low frequency noise is used to calculate activation energies, which are then demonstrated to be similar to values found for electromigration using standard EM tests. Furthermore, the 1/f noise technique is used to assess and compare the EM properties of various advanced integration schemes and different materials. The 1/f noise measurements provide new evidence for the importance of grain boundary diffusion as a dominant EM failure mechanism in highly scaled interconnects.