Electromigration in thin films of aluminium and aluminium alloys is shown to lead to stepwise increases of the electrical 1/fnoise. These are attributed to the generation of highly mobile defect configurations by a nucleation‐and‐growth process. It is conjectured that among them may be the defects that are responsible for the eventual failure of VLSI electronic devices by electromigration damage. 1/fnoise promises to be an early indicator of this damage. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.