Hi, I am reading some reliability reports of some semiconductor devices. Here're some questions in my mind. There're some kinds of faults mentioned in the report. Basically I am not sure whether are those faults caused by stress field operation or just formed during manufacturing and escaped from factory test. Here are some faults: 1) gate oxide breakdown, I guess it will make the transistor down. 2) Interlayer defect, I assume it's short in interlayer dielectric. 3) Mask defect, I don't know what's this, and what's the effect of it. Anyone can point it out for me?
I think the gate oxide breakdown can happen due to high junction temperature, right? But I don't know the other two. I really appreciate if anyone can give me some advices.
Weifeng