A rule of thumb that has come to dominate computing, Moore’s law states that the number of transistors on a microprocessor chip will double every two years or so.

Meanwhile, the doubling has already started to falter, due to electromagnetic interference and heat problems that are unavoidably generated when more and more circuitry is jammed into the same small area.

The interconnect of microelectronic devices becomes one of the most important problems. It is a substantial challenge how to construct the network representation such that it appropriately captures the interconnections among the nodes of a multiple and complicated electronic chip.

Interconnect with best electronic performance can be printed by one spontaneous process between certain nodes on diverse substrates, announced a Chinese research team led by Prof. SONG Yanlin from Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The swarm intelligence shuttles between nesting sites and food sites along the shortest path. They designed a spontaneous process to control the droplet for the fabrication of the predesigned minimum interconnect.

Similarly, the resulted pattern with the shortest interconnect through manipulation of droplet, has the minimum free energy at the thermodynamic equilibrium. The optimal interconnect lead to a 65.9 percent decrease in the electromagnetic interference, a 17.1 percent decrease in the delay and a 24.5 percent decrease in the energy-delay.

This work entitled "Swarm intelligence-inspired spontaneous fabrication of optimal interconnect at the micro/nanoscale", published as the Cover Paper in Advanced Materials, demonstrates that this spontaneous strategy will further promote the optimization of interconnect physical architecture and provide a cost-effective way for integrated circuits and devices.

The research work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 973 program and the "Strategic Priority Research Program" of CAS.

 A new printing strategy for optimal interconnect with excellent electronic performance inspired by the swarm intelligence. (Image by Prof. SONG Yanlin)