Sources of failures and yield improvement for VLSI and restructurable interconnects for RVLSI and WSI: Part II—Restructurable interconnects for RVLSI and WSI

In a companion paper [34], sources of failures and yield improvement through the use of redundancy for MOS, VLSI, and WSI were discussed. It was shown that interconnection density and complexity determines the effectiveness of the use of redundancy for yield improvement for RVLSI and WSI. The key issue in the use of redundancy is the development of interconnection technologies for restructuring. In this paper, interconnect technologies which can be used to facilitate restructuring of VLSI and WSI are discussed. Although electron-beam and laser-programmed technologies are favored for yield improvement, a combination of these (permanent) and electrically programmable interconnections are required for efficient utilization of WSI using new schemes involving self-testing and self-diagnosis with special-purpose architectures.