Interconnect design for deep submicron ICs

Interconnect has become the dominating factor in determining circuit performance and reliability in deep submicron designs. In this embedded tutorial, we first discuss the trends and challenges of interconnect design as the technology feature size rapidly decreases towards below 0.1 micron. Then, we present commonly used interconnect models and a set of interconnect design and optimization techniques for improving interconnect performance and reliability. Finally, we present comparisons of different optimization techniques in terms of their efficiency and optimization results, and show the impact of these optimization techniques on interconnect performance in each technology generation from the 0.35 /spl mu/m to 0.07 /spl mu/m projected in the National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors.