To: IanBruce who wrote (51047 ) 3/24/1998 3:14:00 PM From: Time Traveler Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Ian,...gigahertz parts...CMOS process using copper metallization, integrating six metal levels, a 0.2-micron drawn gate and a 0.12-micron effective channel length. ICs with inductors using copper technology for GPS system "We are aggressively pursuing copper technology, but while copper solves a near-term problem, we think reducing the capacitance is even more of a critical issue because unless it is solved, chip performance, power and operating voltage ultimately will be limited by the interconnect," --- Robert Havemann of TI."We're aggressively investigating copper and dielectric materials, but we're still doing scaling of aluminum lines. We're trying to improve things by going to tall or high-aspect-ratio aluminum lines. That way, you gain performance advantages and get to keep your existing processes and production equipment." --- Mark Bohr of Intel."It's not actually the copper wires that are the main issue. It's the capacitance and that gets to the dielectric," --- Mark Pinto of Lucent."On most products, the most important capacitance is between metal lines on the same layers. If you use copper as the trace, it has about 30 percent less resistivity than aluminum, so you can make it 30 percent thinner. If the spacing is kept the same, the capacitance is reduced." --- Suresh Venkatesan of Motorola.
