Substrate-Influenced Thermo-Mechanical Fatigue of Copper Metallizations: Limits of Stoney’s Equation

Rapid progress in the reduction of substrate thickness for silicon-based microelectronics leads to a significant reduction of the device bending stiffness and the need to address its implication for the thermo-mechanical fatigue behavior of metallization layers. Results on 5 µm thick Cu films reveal...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Stephan Bigl, Stefan Wurster, Megan J. Cordill, Daniel Kiener
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2017-11-01
Series:Materials
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/10/11/1287
Description
Summary:Rapid progress in the reduction of substrate thickness for silicon-based microelectronics leads to a significant reduction of the device bending stiffness and the need to address its implication for the thermo-mechanical fatigue behavior of metallization layers. Results on 5 µm thick Cu films reveal a strong substrate thickness-dependent microstructural evolution. Substrates with hs = 323 and 220 µm showed that the Cu microstructure exhibits accelerated grain growth and surface roughening. Moreover, curvature-strain data indicates that Stoney’s simplified curvature-stress relation is not valid for thin substrates with regard to the expected strains, but can be addressed using more sophisticated plate bending theories.
ISSN:1996-1944