Performance modeling for interconnects for conventional and emerging switches

This paper quantifies the challenges, limits, and opportunities of interconnects for evolutionary and revolutionary semiconductor technologies of the future. Various exploratory devices and the delays associated with their transport mechanisms are quantified. Graphene is selected as the interconnect material of choice because of its excellent transport properties over the conventional Cu/low-K: interconnects currently serving as the communication medium in integrated circuits. Compact models that describe the transport properties in graphene (electron mean free path, mobility, spin relaxation) are presented. These compact models are used to (i) evaluate the performance and energy-per-bit of graphene interconnects in electrical and spintronic domains and (ii) compare these metrics against those of conventional electrical interconnects at the end of silicon roadmap technology node (minimum feature size of 7.5 nm).