Physical and technological limitations and their optimization in submicron ULSI interconnect

The trend of the performance degradation, noise and reliability issues and their potential solutions are analyzed for submicron ULSI interconnect lines. The analysis shows that a copper (Cu) line will improve electromigration, but not the interconnect delay and cross-talk noise significantly. The low temperature operation improves the interconnect delay and electromigration, but increases the cost of system packaging. The optimum approach a combination of additional layers of nonscaled metal lines in a higher level and the use of repeaters to maximize the performance, noise and reliability and to minimize the risk and cost