Electrothermal Characterization of Multilevel Cu-Graphene Heterogeneous Interconnects in the Presence of an Electrostatic Discharge (ESD)

Temperature responses of multilevel Cu-graphene heterogeneous interconnects under the impact of an electrostatic discharge are investigated by using our self-developed time-domain finite-element method algorithm. Corresponding to the advanced CMOS processes, all parameters of such multilevel interconnects are assessed by the ITRS. It is numerically shown that when capped with 10-nm-thick multilayer graphene, the maximum temperature of the Cu-graphene interconnect could be suppressed by 45% and 30% for 13.4- and 21-nm nodes, respectively. This study could be useful for improving the reliability of interconnects in the future nanoscale integrated circuits.