Physically-based simulation of the early and long-term failures in the copper dual damascene interconnect

We have developed a novel physical model and a simulation algorithm capable of predicting electromigration (EM) induced void nucleation and growth in an arbitrary interconnect segment. Incorporation of all important atom migration causes into the mass balance equation and its solution together with solution of the corresponding electromagnetic, heat transfer and electromagnetic, heat transfer and elasticity problems, in a coupled manner, has allowed to discriminate an early failure from a long term one taking place in a via containing copper dual damascene (DD) structure.