Structure Fortification of Mixed CNT Bundle Interconnects for Nano Integrated Circuits Using Constraint-Based Particle Swarm Optimization

Abstract

The emerging VLSI technology and simultaneously highly dense packaging of devices and interconnects in nano-scale chips have prosperously enabled realization of system-on-chip designs and advanced high-performance computing applications. Concurrently, these have aggravated inevitable challenges in miniaturized integrated circuits (ICs). One of the main limiters in the performance of high-speed VLSI designs is the on-chip interconnects. The emerging graphene based mixed carbon nanotube bundle (MCNTB) interconnects have been investigated as one of the most suited and physically realizable on-chip structure. The present work focuses on utilization of MCNTB as nano-interconnects in the optimized way. Determining optimized placement of CNTs in MCNTB configuration is tedious, skilful task and meagerly explored till date. This has been innovatively taken-up in the current work. In the present paper, novel and efficient particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique is explored and innovatively incorporated to obtain optimal distribution of CNTs in a given rectangular area. The objective function considered for the design is to maximize the tube density. Several signal integrity analyses have been executed. The proposed optimized mixed CNT bundle structure is compared with other different configurations of CNT bundle structures. It is analyzed that the proposed optimized MCNTB configuration produces highly favorable results and is apt suitable for futuristic nano IC designs. The different modelling and performance analyses are performed using MATLAB, SPICE and ADS EDA tools.