Statistics of Defect Related Breakdown

An analysis of dielectric breakdown is presented under the assumption that breakdown events occurring at defect-free regions (intrinsic) and-at defects are independent. The yield as function of time, when the defects are Poisson distributed, is a product of factors reflecting defect-related and intrinsic breakdown. Explicit results are given for various tests commonly used in studies of dielectric reliability. A statistical model of dielectric breakdown is required for precise reliability projections and for assessment of dielectric quality from data obtained in breakdown tests. Such a model was developed by Solomon, Klein and Albert1 for defect free insulators. We2,3 derived a model incorporating the effects of defects and presented results for the case where all defects were the same type, i.e., the probability for breakdown at each defect being the same. Our purpose here is to extend our analysis to the case of multiple defect types and to further elucidate the implications of our model.