Electro-Thermal Characterization Of Cabon Nanotube Interconnect And Its Impact On Propagating Signal

Electro-thermal characterization of metallic carbon nanotube(CNT) interconnect arrays biased by high signal voltages is performed in this thesis, which may consist of a working signal and an ESD pulse. Using finite-difference method and finite difference method in time domain (FDTD), one-dimensional longitudinal heat conduction equation of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) is at first solved numerically, with CNT length-dependent temperature distribution, breakdown voltage, and power handling capability captured and compared at local, intermediate, and global interconnect levels, respectively.A modified electro-thermal equivalent circuit model of SWCNT is proposed with hybrid effects of biasing voltage, CNT length, and temperature treated appropriately. The SWCNT circuit model is further implemented for investigating self-heating impact on signal integrities of SWCNT arrays, in particular crosstalk-induced time delay and noise. It is theoretically demonstrated that self-heating effect should be considered carefully in the design of local SWCNT interconnect array as a higher biasing signal voltage is applied.