IRIS Phase III, Subphase B Evaluation
Abstract
The purpose of this report is to provide an evaluation of the primary performers in Phase 3, Subphase B, of the IRIS program against the requirements outlined in DARPA BAA-15-47, dated July 17, 2015. In addition, this report will suggest paths forward to build upon the results of IRIS. IRIS Phase III was designed to develop physics based models to inform highly accelerated microelectronics reliability testing. Real-time testing of parts to an expected useful lifetime of 100,000 hours (~ 10 years) under operational conditions is clearly not feasible. Standards for accelerated reliability testing have been developed by the microelectronics industry, however even under voltage, temperature, and humidity stress conditions it can still take 30 days or more to induce a statistically relevant number of failures. In IRIS Phase III, performers were asked to develop methodologies to reduce accelerated lifetime testing time to 1 hour. The program was divided into two technical areas. TA1 was limited to front-end-of-line (FEOL) device reliability, i.e., failure modes at the transistor level such as Bias Temperature Instability (BTI), Gate Oxide Time Dependent Dielectric Breakdown (TDDB), and Hot Carrier Injection (HCI). TA2 was limited to back-end-of-line (BEOL) reliability, i.e., failure modes at the interconnect metallization levels such as copper electromigration and Low-k Dielectric TDDB. Further the program was divided into two subphases. Subphase A focused on theory and development of physics-based models; no hardware fabrication or data collection was necessary to meet the program requirements. Subphase B focused on demonstration; performers were asked to use their physics-based model to predict test conditions which would induce failures in microelectronic circuits in less than one hour and to demonstrate the highly accelerated reliability testing on test chips fabricated at the 28nm or 14nm technology node.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 29, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1109535
Entities
People
- Steven Vitale
Organizations
- MIT Lincoln Laboratory