Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2011
The interfacial reactions that may occur from the ageing of integrated circuits during operation will change their properties and produce failures. It is crucial to understand the phenomena that controls these reactions and their kinetics.
The object of this work was to establish the role of impurities and grain size on the growth rate of TiAI3 from Al/Ti interfaces. The kinetic study consisted of different annealings followed by electrical measurements. These data were correlated with microstructural analysis and composition evolution from Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Secondary Ions Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS).
The kinetic data were fitted using a combination of classical models (parabolic, Avrami, Aronson) and complemented by a simulation, which accounts for the nucleation frequency and the grain boundary diffusion. The growth simulations were compared to microstructures observations using TEM.