All-carbon interconnect scheme integrating graphene-wires and carbon-nanotube-vias

Performance and reliability of Cu interconnects degrade continuously with scaling of technology nodes down to sub-10 nm. To address such challenge, in this work, we demonstrate an “all-carbon” interconnect scheme for the first time, with full integration of multilayer graphene (MLG) wires and carbon nanotube (CNT) vias, enabled by a unique carbon-nickel alloy contact technology. The electrical properties are measured and analyzed using a realistic via-chain test structure. Owing to the extremely high current carrying capacity, thermal conductivity and large carrier scattering length of carbon nanomaterials, the reliability of the all-carbon interconnect technology is demonstrated to surpass that of Cu. Furthermore, scaling analysis is performed to establish the superiority of the all-carbon interconnect scheme over Cu in terms of performance, energy efficiency and reliability at 5-nm node at both local and intermediate levels.