Ultralow-Power Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube Interconnects for Subthreshold Circuits

Single-wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) interconnects, though seem promising, have fundamental and practical limitations. The resistance of individual SWNTs is quite large because of which dense SWNT bundles are needed. However, there has been little progress in wafer-level fabrication of horizontal bundles of densely packed nanotubes. This letter reports that individual SWNTs can be used as interconnects in subthreshold circuits to improve delay and energy-per-bit by up to 5 times and 6 times, respectively. In light of recent advances in wafer-level fabrication of long aligned isolated SWNTs, the presented results can potentially open up a new and less challenging path toward SWNT interconnects.

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