Electromigration-induced local dewetting in Cu films

Abstract

The continuous downscaling of microelectronics has introduced many reliability issues on interconnect. Electromigration and dewetting are major reliability concerns in high-temperature micro- and nanoscale devices. In this paper, the local dewetting of copper thin film during the electromigration test was first found and investigated. When the high current was applied, the dewetted copper forming around the edge was observed at the cathode of the conductor. Furthermore, the effect of temperature and conductor size on local dewetting was investigated. Our proposed mechanism for local dewetting is in good agreement with experimental findings.