Measurement and Analysis of Inductive Coupling Noise in 90 nm Global Interconnects

Inductive coupling is becoming a design concern for global interconnects in nanometer technologies. We present measurement results of the effect of inductive coupling on timing, and demonstrate that inductive coupling noise is a practical design issue in 90 nm technology. The measured delay change curve is consistent with circuit simulation results for an RLC interconnect model, and clearly different from those for a conventional RC model. The long-range coupling effect of inductive coupling, and noise reduction caused by ground insertion or decreased driver size were clearly observed on silicon. Examination of noise cancellation and superposition effects shown in measurement results confirm that the summation of delay variations due to each individual aggressor is a reasonable approximation of the total delay variation.