Signal integrity analysis of carbon nanotube on-chip interconnects

The paper deals with the signal integrity performances of a nanoscale on-chip interconnect made by using the carbon nanotube technology. As conventional copper does, this material can be used for fabricating both horizontal traces and vertical vias. Carbon nanotubes interconnects outperform copper ones in terms of electrical, thermal and mechanical properties. However their inductance is much higher compared to that of conventional material, due to inertial effects. Usually this inductance is neglected in the circuit equivalent representation of carbon nanotube interconnects. Here we use a recently proposed circuit model to study the effects of the inductance on the signal integrity. The analysis is carried out by referring to a realistic configuration foreseen for the future 22 nm technology.