Observations on the Reliability of thin Film Nickel-Chromium Resisiors

The reliability of 150Å thick Ni-Cr films used for resistors was studied. It was found that these films deposited on SiO2 were continuous, void-free, and not susceptible to intermetallic formation with aluminum during normal device processing. No evidence of electromigration was found in these films after continuous powering at current densities up to 5.9 × 106 amps/cm2 for 1000 hours; nor were failures found for power cycling at these current densities for up to 7.2 × 109 cycles.