Electro-migration (EM) is one of the most important issues in designing integrated circuits (ICs). Specifically, EM is the transportation of material caused by the gradual movement of ions in a conductor due to the momentum transfer between conducting electrons and diffusing metal atoms. The effect appears in applications where high-current pulses are generated, such as in microelectronics and related structures.
The EM effect becomes more apparent as the structure size decreases in electronics such as integrated circuits (ICs). The EM effect is usually evaluated by lifetime and failure rates, and the failure-in-time (FIT) is often utilized to indicate the failure rate of the IC. Therefore, a method for calculating FIT will be needed to evaluate the EM effect on the IC.
Corresponding numerals and symbols in the different figures generally refer to corresponding parts unless otherwise indicated. The figures are drawn to clearly illustrate the relevant aspects of the embodiments and are not necessarily drawn to scale.