HT-FED2004-56252 SIMULATIONS OF HEAT TRANSPORT DURING TRANSIENT ELECTROSTATIC DISCHARGE EVENTS IN A SUB-MICRON TRANSISTOR

ABSTRACT The thermal problem associated with the transient electrostatic discharge phenomena in sub-micron silicon transistors is fast becoming a major reliability concern in IC packages. Currently, Fourier diffusion and some simple models based on the solution to the phonon Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) are used to predict failure (melting of silicon) in these transistors. In this study, a more comprehensive model, based on the phonon BTE and incorporating considerable details of phonon physics, is proposed and used to study the ESD problem. Transient results from the model reveal very significant discrepancies when compared to results from the other models in the literature