ELECTROMIGRATION-INDUCED RESISTANCE CHANGES IN A SINGLE ALUMINUM VIA

High resolution resistance measurements have been performed on isolated aluminum vias to study resistance changes induced by electromigration. The via test structures consisted of a 1.5 μm diameter, 0.8 μm deep interconnect between two aluminum alloy metallization layers separated by a TiN layer. The TiN interlayer acts as a diffusion barrier for the electromigration process at which material may accumulate or be depleted to induce resistance changes. The resistance changes were measured with a resolution of 10-9 Ω/s for a ∼0.1 Ω via. A dc current caused both increases and decreases in the resistance, depending in the current direction, which recovered completely when the current was removed. The initial resistance changes were found to be proportional to t1/2 as would be expected for a diffusive electromigration process. Because both the geometry and diffusion barrier of these structures are well defined a quantitative analysis can be made which is found to be most consistent with copper as the initial diffusing element.© 1995 American Institute of Physics.