High Frequency Interconnect Characterization and Modeling: For VLSI On-Chip Interconnects and RF Package Wire Bonds

Continuous scaling of transistors combined with increased chip area results in the ratio of global wire delay to gate delay increasing at a super-linear rate. Simple RC models have become inadequate for simulation of VLSI circuits. In addition, parasitic inductance and capacitance of IC packages impose limits on the circuit performance at RF frequencies. This book presents modeling of on-chip inductance for chips with ground grids that emulate those used in real circuits. S-parameter characterization of test chips up to 10 GHz shows good agreement with simulation and analytical calculations. On-chip 3-D capacitance modeling capabilities for arbitrarily shaped objects are also presented. In addition, an approach to fast 3-D modeling of the geometry for bonding wires in RF circuits and packages is demonstrated. The geometry and an equivalent circuit are presented to model the frequency response of bonding wires. Excellent agreement between modeled results and measured data is achieved for frequencies up to 10 GHz. The book should be useful to the semiconductor professionals in academia and industry, who are interested in the on-chip and package interconnects researches.

Xiaoning Qi, Ph.D.: Studied Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. Senior Staff Engineer at Intel Corp. on signal and power integrity for semiconductor systems. He worked on power integrity for high speed I/O, process variation, leakage currents, on-chip interconnects and CAD tools at Rambus, Synopsys and Sun Microsystems, California.