Electromigration in Gold: Challenges and Possibilities (Invited)

A comprehensive understanding of electromigration at a fundamental level has enabled its application in processing silicon surfaces and forming silicon nanowires. This paper presents state-of-the-art models currently used to enhance the electromigration reliability of metallic interconnects and introduces a novel approach to leveraging these models to study the movement and morphological transformation of gold droplets on silicon substrates. Electromigration-driven gold droplets act as agents in the formation of surface features on silicon, which can be utilized for silicon nanowire processing. The impact of gold droplet size and shape, as well as the applied electrical current density, are accurately predicted by simulations, as demonstrated through comparison with experimental results.