Emerging interconnects: a state-of-the-art review and emerging solutions

• Published in: International journal of electronics 2017-07, Vol.104 (7), p.1107-1119
• Main Authors: Turkane, S. M., Kureshi, A. K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aluminium (Al); Carbon; Carbon nanotubes; carbon nanotubes (CNTs); Copper; copper (Cu); Delay; Electromigration; Graphene; graphene nanoribbons (GNR); Integrated circuits; integrated circuits (IC); Interconnect; Interconnections; Materials selection; mixed carbon nanotube bundle (MCB); multi-layer GNR (MLGNR); Nanotubes; Nanowires; optical interconnects (OI); silicon nanowires (SiNWs); single-layer GNR (SLGNR)
• ISSN: 0020-7217; 1362-3060
• DOI: 10.1080/00207217.2017.1285436

Aluminium was a primary material for interconnection in integrated circuits (ICs) since their inception. Later, copper was introduced as interconnect material which has better metallic conductivity and resistance to electromigration. As the aggressive technology scaling continues, the copper resistivity increased because of size effects, which causes increase in delay, power dissipation and electromigration. The need to reduce the resistor-capacitor​​​​​​​ delay, dynamic power utilisation and the crosstalk commotion is as of now the fundamental main impetus behind the presentation of new materials. The purpose of this paper is to do a survey of interconnect material used in IC from introduction of ICs to till date. This paper studies and reviews new materials available for interconnect application which are optical interconnects, carbon nanotube (CNT), graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) and silicon nanowires which are alternatives to copper. While doing a survey of interconnect material, it is found that multiwalled CNTs, multilayer GNR and mixed CNT bundles are promising candidates and are ultimate choice that can strongly address the problems faced by copper but on integration basis copper would last for coming years.