Dynamic Mesh Adaptation for Three-Dimensional Electromigration Simulation

It is well known that the simulation of time-to-failure for copper (Cu) metal lines requires modeling of vacancy electromigration as well as void nucleation, growth, and movement. Because of the complexity of this problem, different approximate approaches to the physical formulation and solution appear in the literature. Based on our work for two-dimensional electromigration induced void migration and our experience on mesh adaptation techniques we present a computational method for three dimensional tetrahedral mesh refinement and hierarchical coarsement according to the demands of advanced electromigration simulation.