Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) imaging is applied to analyze the electromigration-induced thickness variations of thin polycrystalline films. It is shown that a high angle annular dark field (HAADF) detector is required to minimize the effect of diffraction contact. A further reduction of the diffraction contrast can be obtained using a tilt series. A correlation between the i...

We present a simple process to fabricate gold nanocontacts with a gap as small as sub-10 nm. This method uses a two-step process of nanoimprint lithography ~NIL! and electromigration. First, 20 nm wide gold nanowires were fabricated by NIL on a silicon dioxide substrate. Then by passing an electric current through a nanowire, the nanowire is split into two wires with a gap as small as sub-10 nm...

C4 bumps are susceptible to electromigration failure due to large power-supply currents. Electromigration failure is exacerbated by manufacturing variability, which increases bump resistance and consequently the current draw in neighboring bumps. A typical solution entails adding redundant bumps while guard-banding the maximum current per bump. Instead, we propose a mixed-integer linear program...

Although a lot of work has been performed on electromigration, it is still not at present well understood, and a more detailed understanding of the electromigration process is de\ired. The most accepted method for electromigr ation testing has been conventional life-testing of samples until a particular failure condition is reached. Although this method gives information such a\ median time to ...

The Supplementary Information that accompanies this study was omitted from the original version of this Article.