Electrothermal Cosimulation of 3-D Carbon-Based Heterogeneous Interconnects

Electrothermal characteristics of some novel 3-D carbon-based heterogeneous interconnects, consisting of vertical carbon nanotube bundle via and horizontal multilayer graphene, are investigated by utilizing in-house developed algorithm based on a finite-element method. With present fabrication capability, these heterogeneous interconnects can have larger electrical resistance but smaller thermal resistance in comparison with their Cu counterpart. Both the local on-chip interconnects for ballistic regime and global through-silicon via channel for diffusive regime are evaluated numerically, and their 3-D transient temperature distribution and hot spots are characterized and compared. During the electrothermal cosimulation, the anisotropic property of electrical and thermal conductivities of carbon nanomaterials is treated in an appropriate way. It is believed that this paper will be useful for the design as well as the realization of new generation carbon-based interconnects with high reliability and better thermal performance.