Electro-Thermo-Mechanical Investigation on Multi-Level Interconnects in the Presence of an ESD Pulse

Electro-thermo-mechanical transient investigation on multi-layer high-density interconnects in the presence of an ESD pulse is carried out using hybrid nonlinear time-domain finite element method (FEM). The pre-conditioned conjugated gradient technique (PCG) is combined with the element-by-element FEM so as to enhance our numerical analysis, where the temperature dispersion effects of electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, coefficient of thermal expansion, and Young's modulus of the materials involved are all taken into account. Parasitic studies are performed to show time-dependent von Mises stress responses of some typical interconnects as the injection of an ESD current pulse, which can be fabricated using advanced semiconductor technologies, such as 90-, 60, and even 45-nm CMOS, etc.