Failure Mechanism Analysis of SAW Device under RF High Power Stress

In this paper, the improved power durability test system and method for an reliability analysis of SAW device is proposed and the failure mechanism through failure analysis is analyzed. As a result of the failure analysis using microscope, SEM and EDX, the failure mechanism of the SAW device is electromigration due to joule heating under high current density and high temperature condition. The electromigration makes voids and hillocks in the IDT electrode and the voids and hillocks can lead to short circuit and open circuit faults, respectively, increasing the insertion loss of an SAW filter. The accelerated life testing of the SAW filter for 450MHz CDMA application using the proposed power durability test system and method is carried out. B10 lifetime of the SAW filter using Eyring model and Weibull distribution is estimated as about 98,500 hours.