Mar 19, 2003 Advancements in research into thin dielectric breakdowns and exploration in the use of high-k gate dielectrics and low-k materials as interconnects are the focus of next week's International Reliability Physics Symposium.
The annual conference on IC reliability and performance will be held March 30 to April 4, in Dallas.
Among the topics:
- Low-k materials for interconnects, and how the introduction of low-k dielectrics may change some fundamental rules for electromigration in copper interconnect systems.
- Soft breakdown in thin dielectrics and circuit performance, including why breakdown occurs and what stresses cause dielectric reliability issues.
- Thin gate (less than 12 angstroms) dielectric layer reliability issues.
- High-k gate dielectrics.
- The latest findings on circuit/transistor reliability; copper reliability; ESD and packaging; failure analysis; product reliability; and MEMS reliability.
- IRPS is sponsored by the IEEE Reliability Society and IEEE Electron Devices Society.
