Electromigration in Cu interconnects with very different grain structures

To determine the effects of grain structures on the rate of electromigration-induced failure of Cu interconnects, scanned laser annealing (SLA) has been used to produce Cu interconnects with very different grain structures. SLA, in which a moving hot-zone induces local grain growth, can be used to produce interconnects with fully bamboo grain structures that have bamboo grain lengths up to ten times the interconnect width. Electromigration experiments have been carried out on interconnects with very-long-grained bamboo structures, as well as on interconnects with polygranular structures in which the average grain size is less than the linewidth. Such differences are known to lead to orders of magnitude changes in lifetimes for Al-based interconnects. However, no significant differences in the failure rates were found for these Cu interconnects. This result supports earlier work that suggested that electromigration in Cu interconnects with now-standard liners and interlevel diffusion-barrier layers occurs by mechanisms that are faster than grain boundary self-diffusion.