Copper is a candidate for use as an overpack material in deep underground nuclear waste disposal. Copper, however, is susceptible to corrosion following closure of the repository and migration of the corrosion products through the buffer material may affect the migration of redox-sensitive radionuclides. Electromigration experiments were performed whereby a copper coupon, which was in contact with compacted bentonite, served as the working electrode and was held at a constant potential of between +100 to +400 mV vs. Ag/AgCl electrode for up to 48 h. The amounts of copper that migrated into the bentonite specimens were found to be in good agreement with the calculated values based on the corrosion current flow for the assumption that copper underwent anodic dissolution as Cu(II). A model based on dispersion and electromigration was able to explain the measured copper profiles in the bentonite specimens. The fitted values of the dispersion coefficient did not depend on the applied potential and were about 10-12 m2/s.

The cycling endurance of phase-change memory is one of the last hurdles to overcome to enable its adoption in the larger market for persistent memory products. Phase-change memory cycling endurance failures, whether they are stuck-SET (caused by elemental segregation) or stuck-RESET (caused by void formation), are caused by atomic migration. Various driving forces responsible for the atomic migration have been identified, such as hole-wind force, electrostatic force, and crystallization-induced segregation. We introduce several strategies to improve cycling endurance based on an understanding of driving forces and interactions among them. Utilizing some of these endurance-improving techniques, record-high phase-change memory cycling endurance at around 1012 cycles has been recently reported using a confined phase-change memory cell with a metallic liner.

Severe phase coarsening and separation in Sn–Bi alloys have brought increasing reliability concern in microelectronic packages. In this study, a phase field model is developed to simulate the microstructural evolution and evaluate the change in macroscopic physical properties of the flip chip Cu/Sn58Bi/Cu joint under the conditions of isothermal aging, as well as the coupled loads of elastic stress and electric current stressing. Results show that large-sized Bi-rich phase particles grow up at the expense of small-sized ones. Under the coupled loads, Bi atoms migrate along the electron flow direction, consequently Bi-rich phase segregates to form a Bi-rich phase layer at the anode. The current crowding ratio in the solder decreases rapidly first and then fluctuates slightly with time. Current density and von Mises stress exhibit inhomogeneous distribution, and both of them are higher in the Sn-rich phase than in the Bi-rich phase. Electric current transfers through the Sn-rich phase and detours the Bi-rich phase. As time proceeds, the resistance of the solder joint increases, and the average von Mises stress of the solder joint decreases. The Bi-rich phase coarsens much faster under the coupled loads than under the conditions of isothermal aging.

Bimetallic nanoparticles (NPs) have attracted a great deal of attention due to the synergistic interaction between metal components. In this work, the thermal process in which the reducing agent is not expensive or hazardous as those in traditional methods was employed to prepare alloy Ag–Cu NPs. The molar ratio between Ag and Cu was varied from 1:9 to 9:1. Nearly monodisperse NPs with alloy structure were characterized by X-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy In comparison with monometallic Ag and Cu NPs, the alloyed Ag–Cu NPs showed better monodispersity, especially when the ratio between Ag and Cu was 1:1. Moreover, the alloyed Ag–Cu NPs exhibited enhanced resistance to electromigration and oxidation, the respective problem of pure Ag and Cu. The alloyed Ag–Cu NPs also exhibited improved properties than a mixture of Ag–Cu NPs. This study should serve as the foundation for exploring high performance alloyed bimetallic NPs.

Thermomigration (TM) and electromigration (EM) are two persistent reliability issues and they generally appear concurrently in solder joints. Many previous studies have attempted to understand the fundamental principles behind these phenomena with the majority of which focusing their interest into the faster migration elements in solders like Bi, Ni, or Cu. However, Sn as the slower migration element has not received that much attention. In the present study, a special linearly symmetrical structure was used. An unusual TM phenomenon of Sn atoms in the Sn58Bi solder joint was observed. The unusual TM of Sn atoms along the vertical edges was attributed to the coupled effect of the EM in the horizontal direction and the TM in vertical direction. The relationships between the microstructural characteristics and the temperature distribution were established. The results also indicated that elevated temperature and sufficient thermal gradient were the two major factors that caused TM.

The interfacial reactions in Cu/Sn–52In/Cu interconnects during solid–solid (S–S) and liquid–solid (L–S) electromigration (EM) under a current density of 2.0 × 104 A/cm2 at 90 and 150 °C have been in situ studied using synchrotron radiation real-time imaging technology. The In atoms directionally migrate toward the cathode due to the back-stress induced by the preferential migration of the Sn atoms over the In atoms toward the anode during the S–S EM, resulting in the segregation of the Sn and In atoms at the anode and cathode, respectively. During the L–S EM, however, the In atoms directionally migrate toward the anode due to the negative effective charge number (Z*) of In rather than the back-stress. The polarity effect, i.e., the intermetallic compounds growing continuously at the anode while becoming thinner at the cathode, is more significant during the L–S EM than the S–S EM. Furthermore, the consumption rate of the cathode Cu during the L–S EM is three orders of magnitude higher than that in the case of the S–S EM because of the significantly higher EM-induced atomic flux in the liquid solder. The migrations of the Sn, In, and Cu atoms are discussed in terms of diffusion flux.

Niobium is an important alloying element in steels. In the present work an effort has been made to investigate the effect of electropulsing on the niobium carbide (NbC) at an elevated temperature (800 °C). The results show that the electropulsing treatment can generate an evenly distributed NbC by decreasing the kinetics barriers for precipitation. It has been also found that a semitransformed pearlite structure forms in such a way that the grains are oriented toward a direction parallel to that of the electric current flow. Furthermore, the electropulsed sample benefits from refined grain size. This is thought to be due to the electropulse-enhanced nucleation rate. Tensile testing has been carried out to compare the properties of electropulsed sample with that of without electropulsing. The results show that the sample with treatment has greater yield strength and ultimate tensile stress while its elongation is only 1% less that of the unelectropulsed samples. The improved mechanical properties of the sample with pulsing are attributed to its finer grain sizes as well as the elimination of precipitation free zones caused by the electropulsing treatment.

Three-dimensional integrated circuit packages with through-silicon vias (TSVs) provide a good solution to the integration of different chips and help achieve high performance. The signals are transmitted to different layers directly through the vias, thereby enabling the high performance of the chips. Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor-deposited SiO2, polyimide, and benzo-cyclo-butene are commonly used as the passivation layer for three-dimensional packages. In the 3D stacked chips, mismatch of the coefficient of thermal expansion between the passivation material and silicon will generate thermal/mechanical stress in the metal trace and the stress affects the behavior of electromigration. However, few studies have examined the relationship among the external mechanical stress and critical product of electromigration. In the present study, external stress is applied to the aluminum thin film by a four-point bending equipment. In order to apply higher external stress in the aluminum thin film, the fracture strength of the silicon substrate should be improved. Reduces the edge chipping of the test sample is a key factor for improving the fracture strength of the silicon substrate and a special cutting approach is employed to obtain higher silicon strength. A two-step cutting method is applied to reduce front side chipping and also a dicing before grinding approachis adopted to reduce backside chipping, the above-mentioned technology can enable more than 275MPa of external stress on the aluminum thin film and can make the critical length effect more visible. The residual stress of the aluminum thin film is at stress-free state after annealing at 300°C for 10h. The critical product is found to be reduced from 1,294A/cm to 1,281A/cm when 120MPa of mechanical tensile stress is applied. It increased to 1,315A/cm under 120MPa of mechanical compressive stress. Clearly, electromigration behavior is enhanced by tensile stress and decreased by compressive stress. In the current research, a modified equation for Blech condition is proposed with a stress-dependent effective charge number, the effective charge number increased when tensile stress was applied and decreased when compressive stress was applied.

Sn–Ag–Cu solder interconnects were made by solidifying the solder balls in a magnetic field and subsequently tested for their electromigration behavior. The orientation of the tin grains was analyzed by electron backscattered diffraction. It was found that the c-axis of Sn grain tended to rotate away from the direction of the magnetic field during solidification, resulting in an enhanced electromigration resistance for the solder joint when the current was applied along the direction of the magnetic field, as evidenced by a smaller electromigration-induced polarity effect in the growth of the interfacial intermetallic compound. Such a reduced polarity-effect of electromigration is shown to agree well with the anisotropy in the diffusivity of the active diffusion species, Cu, in the tetragonal Sn. The difference of free energy change caused by the anisotropy in the magnetic susceptibility of the tetragonal Sn during solidification is suggested to be the main factor for this phenomenon.

With the electronics packaging industry shifting increasingly to three-dimensional packaging, microbumps have been adopted as the vertical interconnects between chips. Consequently, solder volumes have decreased dramatically, and the solder thickness has reduced to a range between a few and 10 microns. The solder volume of a microbump is approximately two orders of magnitude smaller than a traditional flip-chip joint. In contrast, the thickness of the under-bump metallization (UBM) remains almost the same as that in flip-chip solder joints. Therefore, many issues concerning materials and reliability of microbumps arise. This article reviews the challenges related to microbump materials for vertical interconnects, including transformation of solder joints into intermetallic (IMC) joints, necking or voiding induced by side wetting/diffusion on the circumference of the UBM, formation of porous Cu3Sn IMCs, early electromigration failures caused by specific orientations of Sn grains, and precipitation of plate-like Ag3Sn IMCs. An alternative way of fabricating vertical interconnects using direct Cu-to-Cu bonding is also discussed.

Process-induced defects in electroplated Au interconnect metallization on GaAs devices were detected during the course of reliability testing. Abnormally high lognormal sigma values (σ > 0.7) indicated the existence of a bi-modal failure mechanism. A distinct early lifetime failure mode was observed along with the intrinsic electromigration metallization wear-out failure mode. Physical characterization of the electroplated Au film revealed as-deposited nanoscale voids. Elimination of these voids through process improvement as well as suggested mechanisms for the early failures are discussed.

Creep and electromigration (EM) have been two reliability concerns in microelectronic devices for a long time. The related failure mechanisms have been widely investigated and comprehended individually. However, there is a lack of attention with regard to the interaction(s) between current density and creep, the coupling effect of which is more analogous to the real service conditions of lead-free solder joint. In this study, a series of experiments were carried out on the simple shear lap joint to investigate the effects of current density magnitude on the creep behavior of solder joints. The results indicated that dislocation creep was the main failure mechanism for low current density sample. For high current density sample, the failure mechanism was mainly dominated by copper atom migrating process which led the joint experience a higher risk of brittle fracture failure.

The stress relaxation and failure behavior of Ni/Sn–3.0Ag–0.5Cu/electroless nickel electroless palladium immersion gold flip-chip solder bumps undergoing electromigration (EM) at 150 °C under 1.5 × 104 A/cm2 was investigated in situ. Three modes of stress relaxation of Sn–3.0Ag–0.5Cu solder bumps were identified. At the cathode, voids and hollows with terrace morphology gradually formed to relieve the tensile stress; at the anode, especially around the current crowding corner, recrystallization of Sn grains and extrusion of hillocks occurred to relieve the compressive stress; in the solder bump, Sn grain boundary sliding that occurred to accommodate the diffusion creep was more pronounced with increasing EM time. Grain boundary sliding is considered to be an indispensable requisite for diffusion creep. The microstructural evolution of solder bumps at the last stage of lifetime was revealed, and the final EM-induced failure mode was the local fusion of a solder bump resulting from the crack formation-and-propagation at the cathode.

The electromigration lifetimes of a very large quantity of passivated electroplated Au interconnects were measured utilizing high-resolution in-situ resistance monitoring equipment. Application of moderate accelerated stress conditions with current density limited to 2 MA/cm2 and oven temperatures in the range of 300°C to 375°C prevented large Joule-heated temperature gradients and electrical overstress failures. A Joule-heated Au film temperature increase of 10°C on average was determined from measured temperature coefficients of resistance (TCRs). A failure criterion of 50% resistance degradation was selected to avoid thermal runaway and catastrophic open circuit failures. All Au lifetime distributions followed log-normal statistics. An activation energy of 0.80 ± 0.05 eV was measured from constant-current electromigration tests at multiple temperatures. A current density exponent of 1.91 ± 0.03 was extracted from multiple current densities at a single constant temperature.

The migration behavior of plutonium is expected to be affected by the corrosion products of carbon steel in compacted bentonite at high-level waste repositories. Electrochemical experiments were carried out to simulate the reducing environment created by ferrous iron ions in equilibrium with anoxic corrosion products of iron. The concentration profiles of plutonium could be described by the convection -dispersion equation to obtain two migration parameters: apparent migration velocity Va and apparent dispersion coefficient Da. The apparent migration velocity was evaluated within 1 nm/s and was found to be independent of the experiment duration and the dry density of bentonite in the interval 0.8-1.4 Mg/m3. The apparent dispersion coefficient increased with the experiment duration at a dry density of 1.4 Mg/m3. The results for other dry densities also showed the same trend. These findings indicate that plutonium migration likely starts after ferrous ions reach the plutonium, in other words, the reducing environment due to ferrous ions could change the chemical form of plutonium and/or the characteristics of compacted bentonite. The apparent diffusion coefficient was estimated to be around 0.5 to 2.2 µm2/s and increased with decreasing the dry density of bentonite.

In situ transmission electron microscopy was performed on the electromigration in platinum (Pt) nanowires (14 nm thick, 200 nm wide, and 300 nm long) with and without feedback control. Using the feedback control mode, symmetric electrodes are obtained and the gap usually forms at the center of the Pt nanowire. Without feedback control, asymmetric electrodes are formed, and the gap can occur at any position along the wire. The three-dimensional gap geometries of the electrodes in the Pt nanowire were determined using high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy; the thickness of the nanowire is reduced from 14 nm to only a few atoms at the edge with a gap of about 5–10 nm.