Integrated Circuits
A Design Perspective
Jan M. Rabaey Anantha Chandrakasan Borivoje Nikolic
The Wire
July 30, 2002
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The Wire
transmitters
receivers
schematics
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physical
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Interconnect Impact on Chip
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Wire Models
All-inclusive model
Capacitance-only
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Impact of Interconnect Parasitics
Interconnect
parasitics
reduce reliability affect performance and power consumption
Classes
of parasitics
Capacitive Resistive Inductive
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Nature of Interconnect
Local Interconnect
Pentium Pro (R) Pentium(R) II Pentium (MMX) Pentium (R) Pentium (R) II
No of nets (Log Scale)
SLocal = STechnology
Global Interconnect SGlobal = SDie
10
100
1,000 Length (u)
10,000
100,000
Source: Intel
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INTERCONNECT
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Capacitance of Wire Interconnect
VDD M2 Vin Cgd12 Cdb2 Vout Cdb1 Cw Cg4 VDD
M4 Vout2
M1
Cg3
M3
Interconnect
Fanout
Simplified Model
Vin
Vout
CL
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Capacitance: The Parallel Plate Model
Current flow L W Electrical-field lines
H tdi Dielectric Substrate
di cint = WL t di
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S Cwire =
S 1 = S SL SL
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Permittivity
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Fringing Capacitance
(a)
H W - H/2
(b)
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Fringing versus Parallel Plate
(from [Bakoglu89])
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Interwire Capacitance
fringing
parallel
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Impact of Interwire Capacitance
(from [Bakoglu89])
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Wiring Capacitances (0.25 m CMOS)
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INTERCONNECT
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Wire Resistance
R= L HW
L H
Sheet Resistance Ro R1 R2
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Interconnect Resistance
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Dealing with Resistance
Selective
Technology Scaling Use Better Interconnect Materials
reduce average wire-length e.g. copper, silicides
More
Interconnect Layers
reduce average wire-length
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Polycide Gate MOSFET
Silicide PolySilicon SiO2
n+ p
n+
Silicides: WSi 2, TiSi 2, PtSi 2 and TaSi Conductivity: 8-10 times better than Poly
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Sheet Resistance
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Modern Interconnect
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Example: Intel 0.25 micron Process
5 metal layers Ti/Al - Cu/Ti/TiN Polysilicon dielectric
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INTERCONNECT
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Interconnect Modeling
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The Lumped Model
Vout cwi re Driver
R d r iv e r
Vo u t
V in C lu m
p e d
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The Lumped RC-Model The Elmore Delay
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The Ellmore Delay RC Chain
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Wire Model
Assume: Wire modeled by N equal-length segments
For large values of N:
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The Distributed RC-line
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Step-response of RC wire as a function of time and space
2.5 x= L/10 2 x = L/4 1.5 voltage (V) x = L/2 1 x= L 0.5
0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 time (nsec) 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
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RCModels
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Driving an RC-line
Rs
(r w,cw,L)
Vo u t
Vi n
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Design Rules of Thumb
rc delays should only be considered when tpRC >> tpgate of the driving gate
Lcrit >> tpgate/0.38rc
rc delays should only be considered when the rise (fall) time at the line input is smaller than RC, the rise (fall) time of the line
trise < RC
when not met, the change in the signal is slower than the propagation delay of the wire
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MJIrwin, PSU, 2000
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