Table Of ContentReliability and Failure of
ELECTRONIC
MATERIALS
AND DEVICES
Second Edition
MILTON OHRING
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Stevens Institute of Technology
Hoboken, New Jersey
With
LUCIAN KASPRZAK
IBM Retired
Bear, Delaware
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Ohring,Milton,1936-
Reliabilityandfailureofelectronicmaterialsanddevices/MiltonOhring,LucianKasprzak.–
Secondedition.
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Includesindex.
ISBN978-0-12-088574-9(hardback)
1.Electronicapparatusandappliances–Reliability.2.Systemfailures(Engineering)I.Kasprzak,
Lucian.II.Title.
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2014031265
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DEDICATION
He whose works exceed his wisdom, his wisdom will endure.
Ethics of the Fathers
In honor of my father, Max,
. a very reliable dad.
- Milton Ohring
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The first edition is a classic in form, content, and execution. The form of
each chapter takes the reader on a trip through a basic phenomena and its
application to failure in electronics (from simple physics to the complicated
math often involved). The content of the book covers all the relevant
disciplines necessary to do a thorough job of discovery of the true cause of
failure. The execution includes relevant examples from the macroscopic to
the microscopic to the atomic, where necessary. The book is truly a
masterpieceddue in large part to Milt’s knowledge and experience in
physics, chemistry, electronics, materials, and most of all his unique ability
to frame difficult problems in the appropriate mathematics.
As such then, only changes were made where necessary, to keep the
book current and useful to the reader (a researcher struggling to determine
thetruecauseoffailuresothatitcanberemediedandneverhappenagain).
Bythewaythatiswhathasmadethisindustrysosuccessfuldfailureanalysis
to true root cause.
L. Kasprzak
xvii
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
Reliability is an important attribute of all engineering endeavors that
conjures up notions of dependability, trustworthiness, and confidence. It
spells out a prescription for competitiveness in manufacturing, because the
lack of reliability means service failures that often result in inconvenience,
personal injury, and financial loss. More pointedly, our survival in a high-
tech future increasingly hinges on products based on microelectronics and
optoelectronics where reliability and related manufacturing concerns of
defects,quality,andyieldareofcriticalinterest.Despitetheirunquestioned
importance, these subjects are largely ignored in engineering curricula.
Industry compensates for this educational neglect through on-the-job
training.Intheprocess,scientistsandengineersofallbackgroundsarerecast
into reliability “specialists” with many different attitudes toward reliability
problems,andvariedskillsinsolvingthem.Thereliabilitypractitionermust
additionally be a detective, a statistician, and a judge capable of dis-
tinguishingbetweenoften-conflictingdataandstronglyheldopinions.This
book attempts to systematically weave together those strands that compose
the fabric of the training and practice of reliability engineers.
The multifaceted issues surrounding the reliability and failure of elec-
tronic materials and devices lie at the confluence of a large number of
disciplinary streams that include materials science, physics, electrical engi-
neering, chemistry, and mechanical engineering, as well as probability and
statistics. I have tried to integrate the derivative subject matter of these
disciplinesinacoherentorderandintherightproportionstousefullyserve
the following audiences:
(cid:129) advanced undergraduate and first year graduateengineering and science
students who are being introduced to the field,
(cid:129) reliability professionals and technicians who may find it a useful refer-
ence and guide to the literature on the subject, and
(cid:129) technical personnel undergoing a career change.
While the emphasis of the book is on silicon microelectronics tech-
nology, reliability issues in compound semiconductor and electro-optical
devices, optical fibers, and associated components are also addressed. The
book starts with an introductory chapter that briefly defines the subject of
semiconductor reliability, its concerns, and historical evolution. Chapter 2
introduces electronic materials and devices, the way they are processed,
xix
xx PrefacetotheFirstEdition
how they are expected to behave, and the way they sometimes malfunc-
tion. The important subjects of intrinsic and manufacturing defects,
contamination, and product yield are the focus of Chapter 3.
Without Chapter 4 on the mathematics of reliability it is doubtful that
the book title could include the word reliability. Historically, reliability has
been inextricably intertwined with statistics and probability theory. Even
today a large segment of the reliability literature bears a strong hereditary
relationship to these mathematical and philosophical antecedents. Never-
theless,“Thefailure ofdevices occursdueto naturallawsof change, notto
the finger of fate landing at random on one of group of devices and
commanding fail“ (R.G. Stewart, IEEE Transactions on Reliability, R-15,
No.3,95(1966)).Inalesscharitablevein,R.A.Evanshaspointedoutthat
probability and statistical inference help us “quantify our ignorance” of
failuremechanisms.Uncoveringtruthshouldbetheobjectiveinstead.That
iswhytheprimaryfocusofthebookandmostofitscontentsdealwiththe
physics of failure as refracted through the lenses of physical and materials
science.Withthisunderstanding,ourtreatmentofreliabilitymathematicsis
largely limited to the elementary statistical handling of failure data and the
simple implications that flow from such analyses. Nevertheless, reliability
mathematicspermeatesthebooksincefailuredataarenormallypresentedin
these terms.
ThemidsectionofthebookspanningChapters5through10isdevoted
to a treatment of the specific ways materials and devices degrade and fail
both on the chip and packaging levels. Failure mechanisms discussed and
modeled include those due to mass and electron transport, environmental
and corrosion degradation, mechanical stress, and optical as well as nuclear
radiation damage. Most failures occurring within interconnections, die-
lectrics and insulation, contacts, semiconductor junctions, solders, and
packaging materials can be sorted into one of these categories. Grouping
according to operative failure mechanism, rather than specific device,
material, or circuit element, underscores the fundamental generic approach
taken.
Important practical concerns regarding characterizing electronic mate-
rials and devices in the laboratory, in order to expose defects and elucidate
failure mechanisms, is the subject of Chapter 11. Finally, the last chapter
speculates about the future through a discussion of device-shrinkage trends
and limits and their reliability implications.
Due to continual and rapid advances in semiconductor technology, the
shelf life of any particular product is very short, thus raising the question of
PrefacetotheFirstEdition xxi
how to convey information that may be quickly outdated. Because con-
ceptsaremorepowerfulthanfacts,Ihavetriedtostressfundamentalsanda
physicalapproachthatmayhaveapplicabilitytonewgenerationsofdevices.
Within this approach the dilemma arose whether to emphasize breadth or
depth of subject matter. Breadth is a sensible direction for an audience
having varied academic backgrounds desirous of a comprehensive but
qualitative treatment; on the other hand, depth is necessary to enable
practitioners to confront specific challenges within the evolving electronics
industries. As a compromise I have attempted to present a balanced treat-
mentincorporatingbothattributesandsincerelyhopeneitheraudiencewill
be disappointed by the outcome. Nevertheless, space limitations often
preclude development of a given subject from its most elementary
foundations.
I assume readers of this book are familiar with introductory aspects of
electronic materials and possess a cultural knowledge of such subjects as
modern physics, thermodynamics, mass transport, solid mechanics, and
statistics. If not, the tutorial treatment of subject matter hopefully will ease
your understanding of these subjects. Questions and problems have been
includedattheendofeachchapterinanattempttocreateatruetextbook.
If this book contributes to popularizing this neglected subject and
facilitates the assimilation of willing as well as unconvinced converts into
the field of reliability, it will have succeeded in its purpose.
M. Ohring
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The idea for this book germinated in the classroom of Bell Laboratories,
both at AT&T and Lucent Technologies, where I taught and organized
several courses on reliability and failure of electronics over the past decade.
Distilling the essence of the vast scattered information on this subject, first
for course purposes and then into the text and figures that have emerged
between these covers, would not have been possible without the resources
of Bell Labs and the generous assistance of some very special people. Of
these,twoofmydearfriends,Lucian(Lou)KasprzakandFrankNash,must
be acknowledged first. Lou, an early observer of transistor hot-electron
effects at IBM, is a member of the board of directors of the IEEE Inter-
national Reliability Physics Symposia, while Frank, an expert in laser
reliability at Bell Labs,wrote the incisive book, EstimatingDevice Reliability:
Assessment of Credibility, Kluwer Academic publishers, (1993). Both
stimulated my thinking on the direction of the book and helped me to
acquire the research literature that was indispensable to its writing.
Importantly,theydispelledsomeofmynaïvetéaboutreliabilityandhelped
metofashionacrediblephilosophyofthesubject,somethingacquiredonly
after lengthy grappling with the issues.
Students enrolled in courses for which books are simultaneously being
written often leave their imprint on them. This is true of several of the
students in the Stevens Institute–Bell Laboratories on-premises graduate
program. Therefore, I want to thank both Gary Steiner and Jeff Murdock
for critiquing various versions of the text. Gary additionally reviewed the
exercisesandenhancedthequalityofseveralfigures;Jeffassuredmethatthe
text was “Murdock-proof.” Other students who tangibly contributed to
the book are Ken Jola, Jim Bitetto, Ron Ernst, and Jim Reinhart.
Ephraim Suhir, Walter Brown, Matt Marcus, Alan English, King Tai,
ShoNakahara,GeorgeChu,ReggieFarrow,ClydeBethea,andDaveBarr,
allofBellLaboratoriesandBobRosenbergofIBMdeservethanksfortheir
encouragement,helpfuldiscussions,andpublications.DespitetheireffortsI
am solely responsible for any residual errors and holes in my understanding
of the subject.
I am also grateful to the ever-helpful Nick Ciampa of Bell Laboratories
for his technical assistance during the preparation of this book and gen-
erosity over the years. For help at important times I wish to acknowledge
xxiii
xxiv Acknowledgments
Pat Downes and Krisda Siangchaew. Lastly, thanks are owed to Zvi Ruder
for supporting this project at Academic Press and to Linda Hamilton and
Julie Champagne for successfully guiding it through the process of
publication.
My dear wife, Ahrona, has once again survived the birth of a book in
the family, this time during a joyous period when our three grandchildren,
Jake, Max, and Geffen, were born. She and they were unfailing sources of
inspiration.
M. Ohring
CHAPTER 1
An Overview of Electronic
Devices and Their Reliability
1.1 ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS
1.1.1 Historical Perspective
Never in human existence have scientific and technological advances
transformed our lives more profoundly, and in so short a time, as during
what may be broadly termed the Age of Electricity and Electronics.1 From
the telegraph in 1837 (which was in a sense digital, although clearly elec-
tromechanical) to the telephone and teletype, television and the personal
computer,thecellphoneandthedigitalcamera,andtheWorldWideWeb
(WWW), the progress has been truly breathtaking. All these technologies
have been focused on communicating information at ever increasing
speeds. In contrast to the millennia-long metal ages of antiquity, this age is
only little more than a century old. Instead of showing signs of abatement,
there is every evidence that its pace of progress is accelerating. In both a
practical and theoretical sense, a case can be made for dating the origin of
this age to the eighth decade of the nineteenth century [1]. The legacy of
tinkering with voltaic cells, electromagnets, and heating elements culmi-
nated in the inventions of the telephone in 1876 by Alexander Graham
Bell, and the incandescent light bulb 3years later by Thomas Alva Edison.
DespitethefactthatJamesClerkMaxwellpublishedhismonumentalwork
Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873, the inventors probably did
not know of its existence. With little in the way of “science” to guide
them,innovationcamefromwonderfullycreativeandpersistentindividuals
who incrementally improved devices to the point of useful and reliable
function. This was the case with the telephone and incandescent lamp,
perhaps the two products that had the greatest influence in launching the
widespread use of electricity. After darkness was illuminated and
1Electricitymeansthoseadvancescapitalizingonelectromagneticsandelectromechanics,e.g.,genera-
torsandmotors.Incontrast,Electronicsrelatestothebroadrangeofdevices,e.g.,vacuumtubesand
transistors,whichfunctionbycontrollingtheflowofelectricalchargesinavacuum,gas,solid,
liquid,orplasma.
ReliabilityandFailureofElectronicMaterialsandDevices
ISBN978-0-12-088574-9 ©2015ElsevierInc.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-088574-9.00001-X Allrightsreserved. 1
