Direct evidence of electromigration failure mechanism in dual-damascene Cu interconnect tree structures

In situ secondary electron microscope (SEM) characterizations were carried out to study electromigration failure mechanism in dual-damascene Cu interconnect tree structures, which are important for reliability assessment as well as design optimizations of on-chip interconnects. Direct evidence of electromigration-induced degradation in interconnect tree structure consisting of void nucleation and void movement in opposite direction to electron flow along the Cu SiNx interface was unraveled. The peculiar electromigration behavior of Cu interconnect tree structures can be clearly understood based on this mechanism. Dependence of electromigration mechanism of a segment in a Cu interconnect tree on current configuration in neighboring interconnect segment is discussed in detail.