Reliability of silicon integrated circuits

Reliability assurance of silicon integrated circuits (ICs) has been an essential activity since the earliest days of the IC industry. Cross-disciplinary investigations of failure mechanisms have resulted in a comprehensive understanding of the degradation phenomena that dominate silicon circuit reliability. Reliability is now considered from the very earliest stages of development of silicon manufacturing technologies and is a primary driver of decisions taken in the design of a manufacturing process technology. Studies of reliability will continue to play an important role in the development of the Si industry: the imminent introduction of new dielectric and interconnect materials and novel transistor architectures, together with aggressive performance and power requirements, will need to be navigated while maintaining high levels of circuit reliability. In this chapter, we review the current understanding of the reliability issues that generically impact silicon circuits of all types and discuss the physical processes that are involved. The focus of this chapter is on degradation mechanisms occurring on the silicon device. The material included covers issues involving degradation of the transistor and gate dielectric, the metal conductors and insulating dielectrics that link transistors together within a circuit, and occurrence of radiation-induced soft errors caused by the impact of energetic particles on circuits.