Journal
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES
Volume 68, Issue 10, Pages 5078-5084Publisher
IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
DOI: 10.1109/TED.2021.3105086
Keywords
2-D materials; air-gap; back-end-of-line (BEOL); interconnect; low-k
Funding
- Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation [GDST19EG20]
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The introduction of air-gap technology in global buses effectively reduces delay and power consumption, while meeting mechanical and electrical performance requirements.
With a goal of delay and power reduction in global buses, an air-gap technology for upper-layer interconnectis introduced. The fabrication process is discussed, utilizing h-BN as an air-gap capping layer to enable large voids. The suitability of an air-gap technology for integration into the upper-layer back-end-of-line (BEOL) interconnect is evaluated in terms of the void ratio to the adjacent-line spacing. Electrical measurements show that adjacent-line capacitance is reduced by 50%. Mechanical reliability is ensured by Young's modulus above BEOL requirement. Moisture uptake into air gaps is prevented using a hydrophobic capping layer. The integration of air gaps in global buses results in a 41% and 60% reduction in delay and crosstalk in the worst case switching scenario, based on parameters in the 14-nm technology node. It allows a 72% reduction in the energy-delay product with optimally designed repeaters. For the same delay, power consumption in an air-gapped global bus is reduced by requiring 4x fewer repeaters.
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