METHOD AND STRUCTURE FOR REDUCTION OF SOFT ERROR RATES IN INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

摘要

A method for reduction of soft error rates in integrated circuits. The method including: providing a test device, the test device comprising: a semiconductor substrate; and a stack of one or more wiring levels stacked from a lowermost wiring level to an uppermost wiring level, the lowermost wiring level on a top surface of the substrate; selecting an energy of alpha particles of a given energy to be stopped from penetrating through the stack of one or more wiring levels; bombarding the semiconductor substrate with a flux of the alpha particles of the selected energy; and determining a combination of a thickness of a blocking layer and a volume percent of metal wires in the blocking layer sufficient to stop a predetermined percentage of alpha particles of the maximum energy striking a top surface of the blocking layer from penetrating through the stack of one or more wiring levels.