Near speed-of-light on-chip electrical interconnect

Author

Chang, R.T. ; Yue, C.P. ; Wong, S.S.

Author_Institution

Center for Integrated Syst., Stanford Univ., CA, USA

fYear

2002

fDate

13-15 June 2002

Firstpage

18

Lastpage

21

Abstract

The propagation limits of electrical signals for systems built with conventional silicon processing are explored. Data transmission near the speed of light with an all-electrical system can be achieved by taking advantage of the inductance-dominated high-frequency regime of on-chip interconnect. In a 0.18 /spl mu/m, 6-level Aluminum CMOS technology, an overall delay of 278 ps for a 20 mm long line corresponding to a propagation velocity of one half the speed of light in silicon dioxide has been demonstrated.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; aluminium; integrated circuit interconnections; 0.18 micron; Al; Si-SiO/sub 2/; all-electrical system; data transmission; electrical signal propagation; high-frequency inductance; multilevel aluminum CMOS technology; propagation delay; propagation velocity; silicon dioxide; silicon processing; speed-of-light on-chip electrical interconnect; Aluminum; CMOS technology; Frequency; Integrated circuit interconnections; Optical propagation; Power system interconnection; Propagation delay; Repeaters; Silicon; Wire;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

VLSI Circuits Digest of Technical Papers, 2002. Symposium on

Conference_Location

Honolulu, HI, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7310-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/VLSIC.2002.1015032

Filename

1015032