High-frequency effects of Al-lossy lines in MCM-D on silicon substrate

This paper discusses an experimental investigation of the behavior of high-speed Si/SiO/sub 2//Al based microstrip, when an extra DC bias voltage is applied to the line. In order to reduce the insertion losses caused by the semiconductor substrate, we suggest a superposition of a DC biasing to the high-speed signal applied to the line. This way, the conductor line changes the surface properties of the semiconductor substrate. To provide the characterization of this effect a number of test structures containing a variety of microstrip asymmetric transmission lines were prepared. The obtained results suggest a way of controlling the performance and energy propagation of interconnects on semiconductor substrates. The studied effect can be successfully applied in high-speed blocks with tuning parameters.