Aluminum Interconnect Response to Electrical Overstress

The response of aluminum interconnect to electrical overstress (EOS) is an important component of semiconductor reliability. Proper modeling of the fusing characteristics are necessary to build more robust circuits without wasting die area and allow estimation of the events that cause failures. This paper reviews previous work on aluminum EOS and presents experimental evidence of the mechanisms involved in aluminum EOS. From this evidence a simplified model is proposed based on the physical characteristics of the structure.