Monolithic three-dimensional integration of aligned carbon nanotube transistors for high-performance integrated circuits

Carbon nanotube field-effect transistors(CNT FETs)have been demonstrated to exhibit high performance only through low-temperature fabrication process and require a low thermal budget to construct monolithic three-dimensional(M3D)integrated circuits(ICs),which have been considered a promising tech-nology to meet the demands of high-bandwidth computing and fully func-tional integration.However,the lack of high-quality CNT materials at the upper layer and a low-parasitic interlayer dielectric(ILD)makes the reported M3D CNT FETs and ICs unable to provide the predicted high performance.In this work,we demonstrate a multilayer stackable process for M3D integration of high-performance aligned carbon nanotube(A-CNT)transistors and ICs.A low-κ(-3)interlayer SiO_(2)layer is prepared from spin-on-glass(SOG)through processes with a highest temperature of 220℃,presenting low parasitic capaci-tance between two transistor layers and excellent planarization to offer an ideal surface for the A-CNT and device fabrication process.A high-quality A-CNT film with a carrier mobility of 650 cm 2 V^(-1)s^(-1)is prepared on the ILD layer through a clean transfer process,enabling the upper CNT FETs fabri-cated with a low-temperature process to exhibit high on-state current(1 mAμm^(-1))and peak transconductance(0.98 mSμm^(-1)).The bottom A-CNT FETs maintain pristine high performance after undergoing the ILD growth and upper FET fabrication.As a result,5-stage ring oscillators utilizing the M3D architecture show a gate propagation delay of 17 ps and an active region of approximately 100μm 2,representing the fastest and the most compact M3D ICs to date.