Future of Graphene based Interconnecte Technology - A Reality or a Distant Dream

In the era of advanced sub-micron technology, the on-chip interconnect primarily dominates the overall system performance. This paper critically addresses the impact of technology advancement and spacing on crosstalk induced delay and peak noise for copper and multi-layered graphene nanoribbon (MLGNR) based global on-chip interconnects. In order to demonstrate the crosstalk effect, this paper presents the multi-conductor transmission line (MTL) model of MLGNR that can be further simplified to an equivalent single conductor (ESC) model with a negligible tolerance below 0.91% irrespective of interconnect lengths and spacing. Using the proposed ESC model, the crosstalk induced delay and noise are analyzed for a coupled driver-interconnect-load setup. It is observed that the MLGNR possesses a negligible crosstalk effect at an advanced technology node in comparison to Cu interconnects. At 14 nm technology node, the overall crosstalk induced delay of MLGNR can be reduced by 48.1% with respect to Cu in comparison to 32 nm node at global interconnect lengths.