Investigation of electrical programmable metal fuse in 28nm and beyond CMOS technology

Minimum blowing current and thermal reliability of metal fuse were studied on various lengths of top and bottom metal line. By optimizing the length of top metal line, the programming current window can be extended. Next to optimize the length of bottom metal line, enough metal void size formed by thermally assisted electro-migration can be obtained in the bottom metal line and the metal void is far away from via bottom enabling highly stable operation. We think metal fuse technology is indispensable for the 28nm technology node and beyond with the introduction of metal gate/high-k process.