Greetings from RPI@Albany-Nano!
As you may know, RPI moved into the Albany NanoTech Complex recently to engage more directly with our partners in Microelectronics. We have a growing presence of faculty and students at Albany-NanoTech. We are organizing a series of exciting events at our new location, starting with an in-person Industry-University Spring Seminar Series.
We invite you to the inaugural RPI @ Albany Nano Spring Seminar Series, on January 31st, Wednesday, 1:00pm-2:00pm, at CESTM Auditorium (ANT). Registration is required for all attendees; non-US citizens must register before 01/08/24. See the registration form for more details.
Looking forward to meeting you.
RPI @ Albany Nano, Spring Seminar Series
31 January 2024, Wednesday, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Albany NanoTech Complex, CESTM Auditorium
“New Materials for High-conductivity Narrow Interconnects”
Daniel Gall, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
“Explorations of Topological Semimetals for Post-Cu Interconnects”
Ching-Tzu Chen, IBM TJ Watson Research Center
Use this link to register: Registration required
New materials for high-conductivity narrow interconnects
Daniel Gall, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, galld@rpi.edu
Abstract: A major challenge for the continued downscaling of integrated circuits is the resistivity increase of Cu interconnect lines with decreasing dimensions, limiting power efficiency and causing the interconnect delay to exceed the gate delay. This resistivity increase is due to electron scattering at Cu surfaces and grain boundaries and leads to, for example, a 10-fold resistance increase for 10-nm-wide Cu lines. This talk summarizes our search for alternative interconnect materials that have the potential to outperform Cu. These include metals with a small electron mean free path to render electron scattering at surfaces and grain boundaries negligible, electropositive metals with spherical Fermi surfaces which minimize surface charge transfer and maximize electron transmission at grain boundaries, anisotropic compounds with preferential transport along the wire direction, and 2D and topological metals.
Speaker Biography: Daniel Gall is the Robert W. Hunt Professor of Materials Science at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA. He received his Diploma from the University of Basel in 1994 and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000. Prof. Gall’s research focuses on the development of an atomistic understanding of thin film growth and on the electronic and optical properties of materials, with a particular interest in electron transport in metals at the nanoscale. Daniel Gall has served as Assistant Editor and Editorial Board Member for Thin Solid Films and the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A, and as Program Chair for the AVS International Symposium. He is a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society and has won numerous awards from NSF, DoE, RPI, ASM, AVS, IBM, and LAM for his work on transition metal nitrides and on high-conductivity interconnects. Professor Gall has authored over 190 peer-reviewed journal articles. His students won over 60 best poster and paper awards.
Explorations of Topological Semimetals for Post-Cu Interconnects
Ching-Tzu Chen, IBM TJ Watson Research Center (cchen3@us.ibm.com)
Abstract: Conduction via the surface states in topological semimetals yields unconventional scaling behavior such that resistivity decreases with reduced device dimensions down to ~nm. This may provide a solution for the interconnect bottleneck in highly scaled integrated circuits. In this talk, we first review the theoretical electrical transport studies of two representative topological semimetals, CoSi and NbAs, to contrast their scaling behavior in thin films with and without defects. We then present the experimental results of CoSi. Our transport measurements reveal coexisting high-mobility surface carriers with low-mobility bulk carriers. Furthermore, the room-temperature resistivity in nanoscale CoSi thin films can drop below the ideal bulk single-crystal limit, which demonstrates the potential of topological semimetals for post-Cu interconnects. We conclude with a discussion on the criteria for screening topological interconnect materials.
Speaker Biography: Dr. Ching-Tzu Chen is a Senior Research Scientist at IBM Research. She joined IBM after receiving her PhD in Physics from Caltech. Her research interests include interconnect technologies, emergent memory technologies for AI hardware, topological materials, spintronics, and beyond Si-CMOS devices. She received the IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards for her work in spintronics and superconductivity and the Mahboob Khan Outstanding Liaison Awards from Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC). She is a Science Advisory Board Member of SRC’s Joint University Microelectronics Program 2.0, an External Advisory Board Member of UIUC I-MRSEC, and the Technical Lead of Semiconductor Technology Thrust in the IBM-RPI FCRC program. Previously, she served in IBM’s Physical Sciences Council to curate and define IBM’s physical sciences research portfolio.