Broadband Microwave-Based Metrology Platform Development: Demonstration of In-Situ Failure Mode Diagnostic Capabilities for Integrated Circuit Reliability Analyses

In this paper, we discuss the use of broadband high frequency electromagnetic waves (RF) to non-destructively identify, classify and characterize performance-limiting defects in emerging nanoelectronic devices. As an illustration, the impact of thermal cycling on the RF signal characteristics (insertion loss (S-21) and return loss (S-11)) is used to infer thermo-mechanical stress-induced defects in metal interconnects. The inferred defects are supported with physical analytical data where possible. (C) The Author(s) 2014. Published by ECS. All rights reserved.