Interconnect and current density stress: an introduction to electromigration-aware design

ABSTRACT

Electromigration due to excessive current density stress in the interconnect can cause the premature failure of an electronic circuit. The ongoing reduction of circuit feature sizes has aggravated the problem over the last couple of years. It is therefore an important reliability issue to consider electromigration-related design parameters during interconnect design. In this tutorial, we give an introduction to the electromigration problem and its relationship to current density. We then present various physical design constraints that affect electromigration. Finally, we introduce components of an electromigration-aware physical design flow.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.7 INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
      B.7.2 Design Aids

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Verification

Keywords:
current density, electromigration, interconnect, interconnect reliability, layout, physical design