Field Dependence of Porous Low-k Dielectric Breakdown as Revealed by the Effects of Line Edge Roughness on Failure Distributions

Abstract

We investigate the electric field (E) dependence of the breakdown of porous low-k dielectrics by measuring the changes in the failure time distribution resulting from the presence of line edge roughness. We show that the Weibull beta increases with decreasing field, clearly demonstrating that dielectric breakdown does not exhibit 1/E or E(-n) characteristics.