Podcasts · The Hardware Podcast with Fexingo: Chips, Devices, and Electronics Engineering Conversations
Why Chip Designers Are Turning to Carbon Nanotube Interconnects
· 13 min · S1 E47
Episode Why Chip Designers Are Turning to Carbon Nanotube Interconnects
Episode 47 of The Hardware Podcast digs into the quiet shift happening inside chip fabrication lines: carbon nanotube interconnects. Lucas and Luna discuss why copper interconnects are hitting fundamental limits at the 2-nanometer node, how carbon nanotubes can carry more current with less resistance, and what TSMC and IBM have disclosed about their early research. They walk through a specific 2025 paper from the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting that showed a nanotube-based test structure delivering 30 percent lower latency than copper at equivalent line widths. The episode also covers the manufacturing hurdles — alignment, density, contact resistance — and why this isn't a near-term replacement but a plausible mid-decade transition. Concrete, engineering-focused, and grounded in real data.
#CarbonNanotubeInterconnects #ChipDesign #SemiconductorEngineering #TSMC #IBM #CopperLimits #2nmNode #IEDM #InterconnectScaling #Nanoelectronics #HardwarePodcast #Technology #ChipManufacturing #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #MaterialsScience #AdvancedPackaging #ResistanceCapacitance
Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo
Links in the notes 1
Transcript
Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.