Electrothermal Analysis Of Multilevel High-Density Interconnects In The Presence Of ESD Pulses Using The Time-Domain Nonlinear Finite Element Method

Comprehensive electrothermal analysis of multilevel interconnects during electrostatic discharge (ESD) pulses is carried out using the proposed nonlinear time-domain finite element method (NTD-FEM). In order to enhance the computation efficiency and reduce the memory consumption, the preconditioned conjugated gradient (PCG) technique combined with the element-by-element (EBE) approximate factorization method are introduced to handle the sparse matrices formed by FEM. The nonlinear material parameters including the temperature-dependent electrical and thermal conductivities are treated rigorously.The technological, structural, and material parameters of the models in the study correspond to the advanced CMOS processes of 90-, 65-, 45, and 32-nm nodes that are standardized by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). The transient temperature distributions, the maximum temperatures and the temperature rise time of three- and four-level interconnect structures under ESD pulses with various waveforms are studied and discussed.Finally, transient temperature responses of GaAs FETs under the injection of high power electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) are investigated. The effects of peak power, time interval, and frequency on the internal heat accumulation are carefully studied.