Low-Swing Signaling on Monolithically Integrated Global Graphene Interconnects

摘要

In this paper, we characterize the performance of monolithically integrated graphene interconnects on a prototype 0.35-$muhbox{m}$ CMOS chip. The test chip implements an array of transmitter/receivers to analyze the end-to-end data communication on graphene wires. Large-area graphene sheets are first grown by chemical vapor deposition, which are then subsequently processed into narrow wires up to 1 mm in length. A low-swing signaling technique is applied, which results in a transmitter energy of 0.3–0.7 $hbox{pJ}/hbox{b}cdot hbox{mm}^{-1}$ and a total energy of 2.4–5.2 $hbox{pJ}/hbox{b}cdot hbox{mm}^{-1}$ . Bit error rates below $hbox{2} times hbox{10}^{-10}$ are measured using a $hbox{2}^{31} - hbox{1}$ pseudorandom binary sequence. Minimum voltage swings of 100 mV at 1.5-V supply and 500 mV at 3.3-V supply have also been demonstrated. At present, the graphene wire is largely limited by its growth quality and high sheet resistance.