Elasto-Plastic Modeling of Microelectronics Materials for Accurate Prediction of the Mechanical Stresses in Advanced Silicon Technologies

This paper reports the implementation of an elasto-plastic model in advanced stress simulation system within the process simulator IMPACT to predict the mechanical behavior of (poly)crystalline materials used in the microelectronic technologies. The benefits of this new model are a better prediction of the stresses magnitude in elasto-plastic materials, the capability to calculate the location and size of plastic area in silicon substrate and the possibility to analyze very accurately stresses evolution in (un)passivated metal interconnects networks, a serious reliability issue for the IC industry in the recent years.