Interfacial Delamination at Multilayer Thin Films in Semiconductor Devices

With the evolution of semiconducting industries, thermomechanical failure induced in a multilayered structure with a high aspect ratio during manufacturing and operation has become one of the critical reliability issues. In this work, the effect of thermomechanical stress on the failure of multilayered thin films on Si substrates was studied using analytical calculations and various thermomechanical tests. The residual stress induced during material processing was calculated based on plate bending theory. The calculations enabled the prediction of the weakest region of failure in the thin films. To verify our prediction, additional thermomechanical stress was applied to induce cracking and interfacial delamination by various tests. We assumed that, when accumulated thermomechanical-residual and externally applied mechanical stress becomes larger than a critical value the thin-film cracking or interfacial delamination will occur. The test results agreed well with the prediction based on the analytical calculation in that the film with maximum tensile residual stress is the most vulnerable to failure. These results will provide useful analytical and experimental prediction tools for the failure of multilayered thin films in the device design stage.