Trends for ULSI Interconnections and Their Implications for Thermal, Reliability and Performance Issues

This paper provides an overview of ULSI interconnect scaling trends and their implications for thermal, reliability and performance issues simultaneously. It shows how interconnect scaling requirements for deep sub-micron (DSM) technologies cause increasing thermal effects. The paper then examines the impact of thermal effects on both interconnect design and electromigration (EM) reliability. Specifically, it discusses the impact of thermal effects on the allowable current density limits. Furthermore, it also discusses how thermal and reliability constrained current density limits may conflict with those obtained through purely performance based criterion. Additionally, high-current interconnect design rules for ESD and I/O circuits are also examined.