Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
We have developed a new experimental technique to study electromigration in bicrytal Al lines as a function of the type and location of the grain boundary as well as the testing temperature. The failure times of these lines are found to be lognormally distributed. The median time to failure (MTTF) depends more strongly on the boundary orientation than the type of grain boundary. The dependence of lifetimes on the type and orientation of grain boundaries, the location and appearance of the failure sites, and the measured activation energy (E.) of 0.94eV suggest that both interfacial and grain boundary diffusion contribute to failure in bicrystal lines, and likely in bamboo and near-bamboo lines as well.