News

IEEE 74th ECTC Intel Best Student Paper Award granted to Yaqian Zhang

• Tuesday, 7 January 2025

We are happy to announce that Yaqian Zhang, PhD researcher in our group, has been awarded the IEEE 74th ECTC Intel Best Student Paper Award for her paper titled In Situ Analysis of Copper Microstructures in Electromigration Using SEM-EBSD Techniques.

Electromigration is one of the most important failure mechanisms in integrated circuits. In this paper, in-situ Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) was used to study the impact of electromigration on the microstructure of copper lines. The paper demonstrates that the microstructure plays a critical role in the electromigration resistance and could be improved by annealing the copper interconnect. These findings show the potential of the technique used and help in obtaining a better understanding in electromigration in interconnects.