Professor TU King-Ning is the Chair Professor of Materials and Electrical Engineering of the City University of Hong Kong. Professor Tu received his BSc degree from National Taiwan University, MSc degree from Brown University, and PhD degree on applied physics from Harvard University in 1968. Professor Tu has been the TSMC Chair Professor and E. Sun Scholar of National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. Professor Tu is a world leader in the science of thin films, especially in its applications in microelectronic devices, packaging and reliability. His recent work is on predicting failure in modern microelectronics based on entropy production.
Low entropy means low waste heat, for processes which use low temperature and low electrical current density. In the beginning, the Centre will focus on reliability issues in 3D IC due to Joule heating as well as heat dissipation. Specifically, electromigration, thermo-migration, and stress-migration failures will be analysed. Three examples are given below. First, based on Onsager’s theoretical study of entropy production, we can perform 1T1j (one temperature and one current density) rather than 3T3j to obtain the statistical distribution of mean-time-to-failure of a device. Furthermore, we can calculate Imax. Second, we developed experimentally the room temperature solid-state solder joint formation. It is different from the conventional solid-liquid interfacial diffusion (SLID) based solder joint formation at 250 ℃. Third, we perform low temperature Cu-to-Cu and hybrid bonding. In the long run, the link between semiconductor technology and bio-medical applications will be emphasized. Our cut-in point is to use Cu cloth and (111) oriented nano-twin Cu to inactivate COVID-19 virus.