On-Chip Interconnect Inductance - Friend or Foe (Invited)

Inductance associated with on-chip wires can nolonger be ignored as chip operation frequenciesincrease into GHz regime. Because the magnetic fieldpropagates a very long range, the extraction of wireinductance is not just dependent on the immediateneighboring environment. This paper discusses thevarious difficulties of extracting inductance ofrandomly placed wires in a typical chip environment.With dedicated return path, the wire inductance can becontrolled and benefit the design of high-speedcircuits. Specific examples are illustrated.