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The RC delay and power restrictions imposed by the interconnect system can contribute to poor circuit performance in an increasingly severe manner as dimensions shrink. Resistances are increasing faster than the scale factor of the technology and capacitance improvements are constrained by mechanical requirements of the assembled stack. Collectively, these cause a bottleneck in both local and global information transfer on a chip. Novel deposition methods and novel conductor materials are being explored as means to increase conductive cross sectional area. Molecular ordering is an opportunity to simultaneously deliver capacitance and mechanical strength. Despite these improvement paths, a more holistic approach to interconnect design is needed, where the application and micro architecture are more tolerant of RC scaling constraints.

The effects of suspension and functionalisation on electrical conduction of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) are experimentally investigated towards highly sensitive chemical and biological detection applications. The conductance is found to be affected by the suspension process, while it shows the similar trend against the temperature before and after the suspension. The reduction of conductance after the functionalisation with NH"2 self-assembled monolayer/glutaraldehyde/biotin can be explained based on the assumption that there is a charge transfer from the SiNW to the molecular layers. The temperature insensitive conductance found in the functionalised SiNWs experimentally for the first time is expected to be extremely useful for practical sensing applications.