Investigations on the thermal behavior of interconnects under ESD transients using a simplified thermal RC network

Abstract

This work focuses on interconnect heating during fast ESD transients. A simplified thermal RC network is used to study the behavior of interconnects and to predict their failures, which can be an open circuit or a latent failure due to the decrease in electromigration lifetime. The RC model is validated by both experiments and finite difference simulations. We observe that the melting of the interconnect system can be considered to be instantaneous. Simulations in both solid and liquid phases of the metal are in good agreement with experiments. Human body model (HBM) and machine model (MM) transients are investigated and a relationship to correlate these ESD stresses with transmission line pulse (TLP) measurements is studied in depth. We show that a square pulse of 80 ns may be used to predict HBM stress and a 45 ns pulse is proposed for MM stress.