New method developed to improve durability of nano-electronic components, further semiconductor manufacturing

University of South Florida researchers recently developed a novel approach to mitigating electromigration in nanoscale electronic interconnects that are ubiquitous in state-of-the-art integrated circuits. This was achieved by coating copper metal interconnects with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), an atomically-thin insulating two-dimensional (2-D) material that shares a similar structure as the "wonder material" graphene.