Challenges in advanced metallization schemes

As the microelectronic industry moves into the ‘nano-era’, the importance of the interconnections in an integrated circuit is growing tremendously. This paper will address the challenges of connecting billions of active elements in a functional pattern. Achieving the needed performances of this network in terms of connectivity, integration density, performances and manufacturability is a major task where breakthroughs will come possibly from new materials, but surely from the co-development of the technology, of the interconnection architecture and of the design methodology.