Impact of Inductance on the Performance of Single Walled Carbon Nanotube Bundle Interconnects

In this work, we have studied the inductive properties of interconnects built with Single Walled Carbon Nan tube (SWCNT) bundle. We have used the most recent ITRS-2011 data while estimating the RLC parameters of SWCNT bundle interconnects. In our analysis, we have used the classical ABCD-parameter-matrix based method and a delay allowance of 50%. Simulations are performed for both sparse and dense SWCNT bundle interconnects at 21 nm and 15 nm technology nodes, considering three levels of their application: local, intermediate, and global. It is observed that for a 100 MHz periodic square wave input with a rise time of 10 ps, SWCNT bundle interconnects are not impacted by inductance. It is shown that for the given input signal and SWCNT bundle parameters, the length over which the inductive effects will be more prominent, has little practical significance. It is quantitatively shown that the inductive effects will mostly impact the long-intermediate and global interconnects. With technology scaling, such effects may worsen the performance. It is also observed that the Elmore-based methodology for delay estimation of SWCNT bundle interconnects predicts the actual delay very accurately with a maximum error of only 5.46%.