Impact of tunneling conductance on the performance of multi walled carbon nanotubes as VLSI interconnects for nano-scaled technology nodes

Abstract

Multi walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) has received most of the attention for their unique characteristics as a possible alternative for copper as a VLSI interconnects for future integrated circuits. Multiple equivalent single-conductor circuit (ESC) models are reported in the literature for analysis of MWCNT as an interconnect, however most of them have neglected the impact of intershell tunneling conductance on the performance of MWCNT as interconnect. In this paper, a model is proposed for deriving equivalent impedance parameters by including tunneling conductance in order to study the impact of intershell tunneling conductance on the performance of MWCNT interconnect in terms of delay. Based on the derived equivalent impedance parameters, existing ESC model is modified. Further, the analytical and simulated results obtained from proposed model are compared with the results of existing models. It is revealed from the comparative analysis that the tunneling conductance has considerable impact on the impedance parameters and the propagation delay of an MWCNT bundle interconnect at variable interconnects length for nano-scaled technology nodes i.e. 32, 22 and 16 nm.