Are carbon nanotubes the future of VLSI interconnections?

ABSTRACT

Increasing resistivity of copper with scaling and rising demands on current density requirements are driving the need to identify new wiring solutions for deep nanometer scale VLSI technologies. Metallic carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are promising candidates that can potentially address the challenges faced by copper and thereby extend the lifetime of electrical interconnects. This paper examines the state-of-the-art in CNT interconnect research and discusses both the advantages and challenges of this emerging nanotechnology.

REFERENCES

• 1: S. Iijima, "Helical Microtubules of Graphitic Carbon," Nature, Vol. 354, pp. 56--58, 1991.
• 2: P. Avouris, et al., "Carbon Nanotube Electronics," Proc. IEEE, Vol. 91, pp. 1772-1784, 2003.
• 3: J. Appenzeller, et al., "Comparing Carbon Nanotube Transistors - The Ideal Choice: A Novel Tunneling Device Design," TED, Vol. 52, No. 12, pp. 2568--2576, 2005.
• 4: F. Kreupl , A. P. Graham , G. S. Duesberg , W. Steinhögl , M. Liebau , E. Unger , W. Hönlein, Carbon nanotubes in interconnect applications, Microelectronic Engineering, v.64 n.1, p.399-408, October 2002 [doi>10.1016/S0167-9317(02)00814-6]
• 5: N. Srivastava, R.V. Joshi and K. Banerjee, "Carbon Nanotube Interconnects: Implications for Performance, Power Dissipation and Thermal Management," IEDM, 2005, pp. 257--260.
• 6: S. Im, et al., "Scaling Analysis of Multilevel Interconnect Temperatures for High Performance ICs," IEEE TED, Vol. 52, No. 12, pp. 2710--2719, 2005.
• 7: N. Srivastava and K. Banerjee, "A Comparative Scaling Analysis of Metallic and Carbon Nanotube Interconnections for Nanometer Scale VLSI Technologies", Proc. VMIC, Sept. 2004, pp. 393--398.
• 8: International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, 2004, (http://public.itrs.net).
• 9: W. Steinhogl, et al., "Comprehensive Study of the Resistivity of Copper Wires With Lateral Dimensions of 100 nm and Smaller," J. of Applied Physics, Vol. 97, No. 2, 023706-1 - 023706-7, 2005.
• 10: P. L. McEuen and J. Y. Park, "Electron Transport in Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes," MRS Bulletin, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 272--275, 2004.
• 11: P. L. McEuen, et al., "Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Electronics," IEEE Trans. Nanotechnology, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 78--85, 2002.
• 12: B. Q. Wei, et al., "Reliability and Current Carrying Capacity of Carbon Nanotubes," Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 79, No. 8, pp. 1172--1174, 2001.
• 13: J. Hone, et al., "Thermal Conductivity of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes," Physical Review B, Vol. 59, No. 4, R2514, 1999.
• 14: M. Nihei, et al., "Low-Resistance Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotube Vias with Parallel Channel Conduction of Inner Shells," IITC, 2005, pp. 234--236.
• 15: J. Li, et al., "Bottom-up Approach for Carbon Nanotube Interconnects," Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 82, No. 15, pp. 2491--2493, April 2003.
• 16: P. G. Collins, et al., "Current Saturation and Electrical Breakdown in Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes," PRL, Vol. 86, No. 14, pp 3128--3131, 2001.
• 17: S. Berber, et al., "Unusually High Thermal Conductivity of Carbon Nanotubes," PRL, Vol. 84, No. 20, pp. 4613--4616, 2000.
• 18: K. M. Liew, et al., "Thermal Stability of Single and Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes", Physical Review B, Vol. 71, 075424, 2005.
• 19: Th. Hunger, et al., "Transport in Ropes of Carbon Nanotubes: Contact Barriers and Luttinger Liquid Theory", PRB, Vol. 69, 195406, 2004.
• 20: W. Liang, et al., "Fabry-Perot interference in a Nanotube Electron Waveguide", Nature, Vol. 411, pp. 665--669, 2001.
• 21: M. Nihei, et al., "Carbon Nanotube Vias for Future LSI Interconnects," IITC, 2004, pp. 251-253.
• 22: C. Schonenberger, et al., "Interference and Interaction in Multi-Wall Carbon Nanotubes," Applied Physics A, Vol. 69, pp. 283--295, 1999.
• 23: A. Bachtold, et al., "Scanned Probe Microscopy of Electronic Transport in Carbon Nanotubes," PRL, Vol. 84, No. 26, pp. 6082--6085, 2000.
• 24: F. Kreupl, Infineon Technologies, Personal Communications.
• 25: K. Hata, et al., "Water-Assisted Highly Efficient Synthesis of Impurity-Free Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes," Science, Vol. 306, pp. 1362--1364, 2004.
• 26: G. Zhang, et al., "Ultra-high-yield Growth of Verical Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes: Hidden Roles of Hydrogen and Oxygen," Proc. National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 102, No. 45, pp. 16141--16145, 2005.
• 27: A. Raychowdhury , K. Roy, A circuit model for carbon nanotube interconnects: comparative study with Cu interconnects for scaled technologies, Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE/ACM International conference on Computer-aided design, p.237-240, November 07-11, 2004 [doi>10.1109/ICCAD.2004.1382578]
• 28: A. Raychowdhury and K. Roy, "Modeling of Metallic Carbon-Nanotube Interconnects for Circuit Simulations and a Comparison with Cu Interconnects for Scaled Technologies," TCAD, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 58--65, 2006.
• 29: A. Naeemi, et al., "Performance Comparison between Carbon Nanotube and Copper Interconnects for GSI", IEDM, Dec. 2004, pp. 699--702.
• 30: A. Naeemi et al., "Performance Comparison Between Carbon Nanotube and Copper Interconnects for Gigascale Integration (GSI)," Electron Device Letters, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 84--86, 2005.
• 31: A. Naeemi and J. D. Meindl, "Monolayer Metallic Nanotube Interconnects: Promising Candidates for Short Local Interconnects", Electron Device Letters, Vol. 26, No. 8, pp. 544--546, 2005.
• 32: N. Srivastava , K. Banerjee, Performance analysis of carbon nanotube interconnects for VLSI applications, Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE/ACM International conference on Computer-aided design, p.383-390, November 06-10, 2005, San Jose, CA
• 33: P. J. Burke, "Luttinger Liquid Theory as a Model of the Gigahertz Electrical Properties of Carbon Nanotubes", IEEE Trans. Nanotechnology, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 129--144, 2002.
• 34: S. Datta, "Electrical Resistance: An Atomistic View," Nanotechnology, Vol. 15, pp. S433--S451, 2004.
• 35: S. Datta, Electronic Transport in Mesoscopic Systems, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995.
• 36: M. W. Bockrath, "Carbon Nanotubes: Electrons in One Dimension", Ph. D. Dissertation, Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1999.
• 37: J. Y. Park, et al., "Electron-Phonon Scattering in Metallic Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes," Nano Letters, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 517--520, 2004.
• 38: A. Svizhenko, et al., "Ballistic Transport and Electronics in Metallic Carbon Nanotubes," IEEE Trans. on Nanotechnology, Vol. 4, pp. 557--562, 2005.
• 39: A. Svizhenko and M. P. Anantram, "Effect of Scattering and Contacts on Current and Electrostatics in Carbon Nanotubes," Physical Review B, Vol. 72, 085430, 2005.
• 40: Z. Yu and P. J. Burke, "Microwave Transport in Metallic Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes," Nano Letters, Vol. 5, No. 7, pp. 1403--1406, 2005.
• 41: H. Stahl et al., "Intertube Coupling in Ropes of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes," Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 85, No. 24, pp. 5186--5189, 2000.
• 42: X. Wang, et al., "Electrostatic Analysis of Carbon Nanotube Arrays", SISPAD, 2003, pp. 163-166.
• 43: F. Leonard, "Crosstalk Between Nanotube Devices: Contact and Channel Effects," Nanotechnology, Vol. 17, pp. 2381--2385, 2006.
• 44: K. Banerjee and A. Mehrotra, "A Power-Optimal Repeater Insertion Methodology for Global Interconnects in Nanometer Designs," IEEE TED, Vol. 49, No. 11, pp. 2001-2007, 2002.
• 45: M. Radosavljevic, et al., "High-field Electrical Transport and Breakdown in Bundles of Single-wall Carbon Nanotubes", Physical Review B, Vol. 64, 241307, 2001.
• 46: K. Banerjee and A. Mehrotra, "Global (Interconnect) Warming," IEEE Circuits & Devices Magazine, Vol. 17, Issue 5, pp. 16--32, 2001.
• 47: J. Hone, et al, "Electrical and Thermal Transport Properties of Magnetically Aligned Single Wall Carbon Nanotube Films," App. Phy. Lett., Vol. 77, No. 5, pp. 666--668, 2000.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.7 INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
      B.7.1 Types and Design Styles
          Subjects: Advanced technologies

Additional Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.7 INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
      B.7.1 Types and Design Styles
          Subjects: VLSI (very large scale integration)

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Performance, Reliability, Theory

Keywords:
VLSI, carbon nanotubes, interconnects