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Cracking and Debonding in Integrated Microstructures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

X.H. Liu,
Z. Suo,
Q. Ma and
H. Fujimoto
X.H. Liu
Affiliation:
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering & Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
Z. Suo
Affiliation:
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering & Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
Q. Ma
Affiliation:
Components Research, Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA 95052
H. Fujimoto
Affiliation:
Components Research, Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA 95052
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Abstract

Internal stresses inevitably arise in integrated microstructures. This paper reviews a fracture mechanics approach to devising design rules to avert cracking. The smallness of the feature size permits a strategy different from that conventionally used to analyze the fracture of bulk materials. In an integrated microstructure, high tensile stress is localized in small regions. The elastic energy stored in each region scales with its volume. The surface energy associated with the creation of a crack scales with the surface area of the crack. Thermodynamics dictates that a flaw cannot grow if the stored elastic energy is lower than the created surface energy. Consequently, for a sufficiently small feature size, the volume-to-area ratio is small, and no flaw can grow. Our design rules do not depend on flaw size. They are deterministic, and rely on well-specified geometric and physical parameters. Furthermore, the stress singularity at corners does not cause any particular difficulty. As an example, the thermal misfit cracking in a multilevel interconnect test structure is investigated.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 516: Symposium E – Low Dielectric Constant Materials IV , January 1998, 313
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1998

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