A Systematic Approach in the Root Cause Analysis of Battery Module Failures

In device fabrication of integrated circuits (ICs), interconnect film thickness uniformity, dishing, and erosion are reliant in layout pattern deviations. Design of devices employ the insertion of dummy metal fill into an IC to reduce process variation induced by chemical mechanical processing (CMP). Analysis of multiple battery module data acquisition devices revealed a systemic fabrication defect shorting two signal lines and blocking inter-layer dielectric (ILD) deposition. In this paper, the authors present a thorough and in-depth analysis of the failure mechanism to identify the root cause. The authors' results were vital to the business unit to initiate an overall metal re-design for quality improvement.