TICON
Overview
TICON is a research project funded by the European Union under the EIC Pathfinder scheme. It aims to develop next-generation nanoscale electrical interconnects based on topological semimetals that can reduce the power consumed by electrical circuits.
TICON has received funding from the European Commission under Grant Agreement number 101257187.
Term: 01.03.2026 to 28.02.20230
Scaling challenge of CMOS interconnects
CMOS scaling has led to huge improvements of the performance of integrated circuits over the last seven decades. Scaling has followed Moore’s law, which postulates that the number of transistors on a chip shall double about every two years through size scaling, resulting in a large reduction of cost. However, CMOS approximately comprises two parts: The transistor devices, and the interconnect metal lines that connect those transistors together. Moore’s law benefits transistor scaling, because transistor become more energy-efficient when reduced in size, but it does not, in the same way, benefit the interconnect lines. In fact, copper, which is the most common material used in such interconnects, becomes significantly worse in terms of its resistivity, when reduced in size below about 30 nm. Effectively, this has led to the situation where the delay and power consumption of modern computer chips are dominated by the interconnect properties rather than the transistors. To overcome this “interconnect bottleneck”, new interconnect materials are needed that perform better at such dimensions. This is the challenge to which the TICON project will contribute.
Topological semimetals as electrical interconnects
Topological semimetals comprise a large number of materials defined by special features of their energy band structure. These materials have non-trivial band topologies, originating from symmetry-properties of the crystal structure, that leads to the formation of two degenerate electronic band crossings. These band crossings give rises to electrical states on the surface of the materials with unique properties: Electrons travelling through these states are more resilient to scattering than electrons in trivial metals. Scattering is what causes the resistivity of, for instance, copper, to reduce when the dimensions are scaled down, therefore could topological protection lead to materials whose resistivity remains low even at dimensions below 10 nm. The issue is that these materials are not yet available as high-quality thin films, which would be required to realize electrical interconnects.
The TICON project
The TICON project is a focused effort to realize topological semimetal interconnects. The ambitious goals of the project include:
- Developing high-quality thin-film deposition of key topological semimetals (CoSi, PtAl and others).
- Identifying the band structure features to enable and maximize surface state transport.
- Demonstrating surface states in topological semimetal thin films by observing Fermi arcs in ARPES.
- Realizing topological semimetal interconnect wires with scaled-down linewidths.
- Establishing key interconnect-relevant properties of TSMs, including thermal stability, diffusion.
- Demonstrating a path to Si CMOS integration through direct deposition on insulator or wafer bonding.
Consortium
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IBM Research Europe – Zurich, Switzerland
Project coordination
Contact: Dr. Cezar Zota -
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
Contact: Prof. Niels Schroeter -
Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre, Belgium
Contact: Dr. Christoph Adelmann -
Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Contact: Prof. Silke Buehler- Paschen -
Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle, Germany
Contact: Prof. Stuart Parkin -
International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, Portugal/Spain
Contact: Prof. Paulo Ferreira