Studying the Impact of Temperature Gradient on Electromigration Lifetime Using a Power Grid Test Structure with On-Chip Heaters.

This work presents statistical data collected from 38 power grid test structures showing the detailed impact of temperature gradient on electro migration (EM) lifetime. The failure time, order, and location under different temperature gradients were compared to show that unexpected early EM failures can occur at temperature gradient regions due to accelerated tensile stress evolution inside the wire.