1. Purpose of the gate
Technology qualified is the formal statement that the process, as frozen in its baseline, can make circuits that last for their intended life under their intended use conditions. It closes Process Reliability Qualification. Customer products will be qualified on top of this result, and many customers will not start their own qualification until it is approved, so the gate sits on the critical path to risk production.
Intrinsic reliability is about the failure mechanisms built into the technology rather than defects in a particular product. The review looks at each mechanism in turn: time dependent dielectric breakdown of the gate dielectric; bias temperature instability in both transistor polarities; hot carrier degradation; electromigration in lines and vias; stress migration and stress induced voiding; breakdown of the dielectric between interconnect lines; and the protection structures for electrostatic discharge and latch-up. For each, the question is whether the stress results, extrapolated with an accepted model, meet the lifetime target at use conditions with margin.
The criteria are: intrinsic reliability tests passed to the plan, to published methods such as JEDEC; every failure analysed and dispositioned; and reliability design rules released for the design kit.
10 more sections for registered members.