Mobile ions entering the IGBT gate oxide - electrical detection and failure localization by lock-in thermography

Small mobile ions, especially sodium and potassium are known to have the ability to infiltrate and move within gate oxide layers of silicon MOS devices. The ion transport in silicon oxide is either a temperature-driven, isotropic diffusion process, or an electrical ion current in presence of an electric field. Therefore, the high temperature gate bias test with negative polarity provides ideal conditions to identify the presence of mobile ions in the gate oxide of IGBT and MOSFET. Mobile ions in sufficient concentration can severely affect the electric characteristics, such as the turn-on and turn-off behavior of the MOS channel, by creating a shift in the gate threshold voltage or excessive sub-threshold currents. This paper shows several examples of how mobile ions can get into the gate oxide, e.g., via cracks in top side metallization, or by corrosive attack of cap layers. All these different failure modes develop the same electrical failure signature after temperature and/or gate bias stress. During the investigations on mobile ions, a special lock-in thermography method was developed that allows to localize the defect sites in the semiconductor by taking advantage of exclusive excitation of MOS cells affected by mobile ion contamination. Finally, after defect localization, further analytical methods can be applied to identify the exact nature of the access path to the gate oxide. Based on the test and analytical routine described above, a special test method was developed that allows to evaluate the permeability of the semiconductor chip top side structures towards mobile ions and to check for weak spots and potential leakage paths.