AN ACTIVATION-ENERGY STUDY OF THE MICROSTRUCTURAL CHANGES IN AL-1-PERCENT-SI INTERCONNECTS

There are several reasons to believe that the microstructural changes in Al-Si interconnects has to be described in terms of a spectrum of a ctivation energies rather than in terms of a single activation energy. In this article, a method is presented to extract a spectrum of activ ation energies from an isothermal and a constant heating rate experime nt. The formalism was applied to the relaxation behavior of passivated Al-1%Si interconnects. The method of analysis shows that the microstr uctural relaxation mechanisms in these interconnects are characterized by a narrow spectrum, centered at an energy of about 1.2 eV.