Signal Integrity Analysis in Single and Bundled Carbon Nanotube Interconnects

Abstract

Carbon nanotube (CNT) can be considered as an emerging interconnect material in current nanoscale regime. They are more promising than other interconnect materials such as Al or Cu because of their robustness to electromigration. This research paper aims to address the crosstalk-related issues (signal integrity) in interconnect lines. Different analytical models of single- (SWCNT), double- (DWCNT), and multiwalled CNTs (MWCNT) are studied to analyze the crosstalk delay at global interconnect lengths. A capacitively coupled three-line bus architecture employing CMOS driver is used for accurate estimation of crosstalk delay. Each line in bus architecture is represented with the equivalent RLC models of single and bundled SWCNT, DWCNT, and MWCNT interconnects. Crosstalk delay is observed at middle line (victim) when it switches in opposite direction with respect to the other two lines (aggressors). Using the data predicted by ITRS 2012, a comparative analysis on the basis of crosstalk delay is performed for bundled SWCNT/DWCNT and single MWCNT interconnects. It is observed that the overall crosstalk delay is improved by 40.92% and 21.37% for single MWCNT in comparison to bundled SWCNT and bundled DWCNT interconnects, respectively.