Test generation and fault modeling for stress testing

Abstract

Voltage stress testing has long been used as a reliability screen. Significant effort has been devoted in the reliability physics literature to setting of stress voltages. Chang and McCluskey formalized the test aspects of voltage stressing in their works on "SHOVE (SHort VOltage Elevation)" testing. Their work deals with 3.3V and 5V technologies where Fowler-Nordheim tunneling is dominant and suggests a stress energy of about 6MV/cm. In current generation technologies, Fowler-Nordheim tunneling is replaced by standard tunneling currents and operating energies are in the suggested stress range (e.g. 1.2V power supply with a 20/spl Aring/ oxide is 6MV/cm). Modified methods are developed to support this new situation, and a rest generation technique is introduced that enables substantial reduction in the number of stress vectors.