Passivation Cracks in a Four-Level Metal Low-k Dielectric Backend Process – A Case Study

This case study describes the difficulties and challenges failure analysts encountered in their nearly year-long investigation into the cause of cracking in a dielectric film. Despite the trend in microelectronics to use ever more costly and sophisticated equipment, this investigation was conducted using only SEM and optical microscope observations coupled with persistent detective work, which eventually uncovered to the cause.