| Summary: | According to Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), global sales of semiconductors reached $247.7 billion in 2006, an increase of 8.9 percent from the $227.5 billion reported in 2005. Due to the increasing consumer demand for smaller computers that process data at a much faster rate, processors that have a large number of transistors and interconnects per chip are required. For more than 40 years, the semiconductor industry has been able to improve the performance of
electronic systems by doing continuous miniaturization or scaling of electronic devices that has led to faster and denser circuitry. This trend has resulted in feature sizes with nanometer dimensions. However, microelectronic device miniaturization will soon encounter a number of scientific and technical limitations. One example of these limitations can be found in copper as electrical interconnects. As interconnect feature sizes shrink, copper resistivity increases due to surface
roughness and grain boundary scatterings. The microelectronics industry is exploring a number of alternative device technologies. One of the approaches is to use other materials to replace copper. Carbon nanotubes are a promising candidate to create electronic interconnects for microprocessors due to their low resistivity at nanometer scale, resulting in being able to achieve high current density. Carbon nanotube network (CNN) interconnects were grown between gold electrodes 30 μ,m
apart supported on Si/SiO2 by combining micropatterning with the controlled growth of carbon nanotubes using nickel catalyst particle placement and a five gas-based CVD reaction. Electrical characterization showed metallic behavior of the carbon nanotube network with a resistance of 281.05 kiloohm (droplet method), 0.47 kiloohm (in-situ, line), and 107.07 kiloohm (in-situ, circle). The resistances of the resulting carbon nanotube network interconnects are greater than the resistances of
other interconnects reported in literature (Table 4). The possible reason of this is the geometry of each interconnect. In carbon nanotube network interconnect, there are lots of nanotubes overlapping each other, creating a network. Therefore, the resistance of that nanotube network is greater compared to that of carbon nanotube bundle and single-carbon nanotube interconnects.
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