Effects of Copper Migration on the Reliability of Through-Silicon Via (TSV)

Non-destructive electrical characterization was performed to detect copper migration in a degraded through-silicon via structure after various stressing conditions, such as elevated temperature exposure, temperature cycling, and electrical biasing. They were performed either independently or as a combination with electrical bias for comparison. Variations in the electrical characteristics reflect the presence of copper. The electrical characteristics were also able to monitor the transport of copper ions from an applied electric field. Physical failure analysis was performed to verify the presence of migrated copper, correlating with the changes observed during electrical measurement. With this understanding, reliability assessments become possible where this paper seeks to value add to verify the influence of Cu migration on the conduction mechanism and time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) lifetime, in which there is currently a lack in understanding. The conduction mechanism was fitted with experimental data before and after degradation and it was deduced that the Poole-Frenkel conduction mechanism is the dominant mechanism after degradation. However, this is dependent on the copper oxidation state which was verified to change over time from Cu2O to CuO by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. TDDB experiments were also performed based on this understanding and found that the presence of copper may accelerate or decelerate time to failure. TDDB lifetime was fitted experimentally and is found to be in good agreement with the √E model. It was verified experimentally by measuring the time to failure at low E-field within reasonable failure time, rather than extrapolating from data at high field.