Electrical performance in time domain of subminiature interconnections on new thin films

This paper is focused on transmission lines with dimensions comparable to future VLSI interconnections (except for the transmission line width which is equal to 5 /spl mu/m, whereas the width of future interconnections will probably be less than 1 /spl mu/m). The goal is to show on which characteristic the effort must be made. To achieve this, the propagation of fast signals along the transmission lines is studied in the time domain. The effect of the insulator on electrical delay and distortion are pointed out. A Fourier transform is used to give the propagation constant /spl gamma/(/spl omega/)=/spl alpha/(/spl omega/)+j/spl beta/(/spl omega/) of the transmission lines in the frequency domain. Results are compared to those obtained by a full wave frequency domain modeling method (TRM).