We studied electromigration (EM) lifetimes and void growth at low cumulative failure probability. We carried out EM test in damascene Cu lines using sudden-death type test structures. Its cumulative failure probability ranges from 0.005 to 90%. To investigate the void growth behaviour, Cu microstructures was investigated. EM lifetime shows correlation with the void nucleation site and the void ...

This laboratory investigation has been conducted to elucidate how the fi nes fraction affects the undrained residual shear strength and liquefaction potential of sand-silt mixtures (Algeria). A series of monotonic and cyclic undrained triaxial tests were carried out on undrained, reconstituted, saturated samples of sand with varying fi nes content ranging from 0 to 50%. These were undertaken in...

This paper investigates the ability of a simple ductile local fracture model to predict the fracture initiation conditions for geometrically similar specimens of different sizes containing either sharp cracks or blunt notches. The material considered is the high strength, low hardening HY 130 steel. We simulated fracture tests on fatigue-precracked compact tension specimens and three-point bend...

We thank the authors of Ref. [1] for their comments and interest in our work [2–6]. We agree that the emission of shear loops on one single shear plane cannot lead to void growth. However, our simulations suggest that coordinated shear on non-parallel planes can lead to void growth/shrinkage [3–5]. Detailed descriptions of this process are still being worked out and represent an exciting area f...

We have developed a novel physical model and a simulation algorithm capable of predicting electromigration (EM) induced void nucleation and growth in an arbitrary interconnect segment. Incorporation of all imp ortant atom migration causes into the mass balance equation and its coupled solution with the corresponding electromagnetics, heat transfer and elasticity problems has provided a capabili...

This study is aimed at evaluation of the deformation behavior of Shirasu soil (volcanic sandy soil) for reclamation and embankment construction, using elastoplastic constitutive equation based on the subloading surface model with the rotational hardening. Test results for isotropic consolidation and monotonic/cyclic loading-unloading compression with several lateral stresses under the drained c...