Conventional interconnects: the crisis

As the design rules drop below 200 nm, a variety of problems emerges such as RC delay, electromigration resistance and heat dissipation exacerbated by increasing chip power. The use of Copper should solve resistivity and electromigration problems but reliability issue with respect to an efficient diffusion barrier is a concern. Low-k: dielectrics allowing capacitance reduction have low thermal conductivity thus poor heat dissipation capability. Integration of Copper and low-k dielectrics is intensively studied world wide. The following gives an overview of the international state of the art to overcome critical issues of advanced interconnects. (C) 2000 Academie des sciences/Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.