Contact resistance and reliability of 40 nm carbon nanotube vias

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are promising materials for on-chip interconnect contacts and vias. We report results on 40 nm top-contact metallized CNT vias consisting of the first experimentally extracted contact resistance for this linewidth and current-carrying capacity two orders of magnitude higher than their Cu and W counterparts, well above the ITRS roadmap specifications. To obtain via resistance comparable to those of Cu and W, contact engineering remains a challenge but can be facilitated with the reported contact resistance extraction scheme.