Near speed-of-light signaling over on-chip electrical interconnects

Author

Chang, Richard T. ; Talwalkar, Niranjan ; Yue, C. Patrick ; Wong, S. Simon

Author_Institution

Center for Integrated Syst., Stanford Univ., CA, USA

Volume

38

Issue

5

fYear

2003

fDate

5/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

834

Lastpage

838

Abstract

The propagation limits of electrical signals for systems built with conventional silicon processing are explored. A design which takes advantage of the inductance-dominated high-frequency regime of on-chip interconnect is shown capable of transmitting data at velocities near the speed of light. In a 0.18-μm six-level aluminum CMOS technology, an overall delay of 283 ps for a 20-mm-long line, corresponding to a propagation velocity of one half the speed of light in silicon dioxide, has been demonstrated. This approach offers a five times improvement in delay over a conventional repeater-insertion strategy.

Keywords

CMOS digital integrated circuits; aluminium; delays; high-speed integrated circuits; inductance; integrated circuit interconnections; 0.18 micron; 20 mm; 283 ps; Al-SiO₂-Si; conventional Si processing; electrical signal propagation limits; inductance-dominated HF regime; microstrip; monolithic integrated circuits; on-chip electrical interconnects; phase modulation; propagation delay; six-level aluminum CMOS technology; speed-of-light signaling; system scalability; transmission lines; Aluminum; CMOS technology; Delay effects; Frequency; Integrated circuit interconnections; Optical propagation; Propagation delay; Repeaters; Silicon compounds; Wire;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSSC.2003.810060

Filename

1196231