IC interconnect technology - Challenges and opportunities

This paper reviews the status and challenges in interconnect technologies for integrated circuits (IC) applications, In order to meet the requirements in performance. power consumption, reliability, processing cost, and manufacturing yield, new materials and integration architectures must be introduced to IC interconnects while novel circuit architectures and new design schemes must be explored to mitigate the challenges and difficulties. The technological challenges in IC interconnects provide tremendous multidisciplinary and innovative research and development opportunities in architectures, processing, integration, materials, and characterization methodologies.