Electromagnetic compatibility of CMOS on-chip antennas

It is shown that it is possible for a radio frequency (RF) wireless interconnects system to have good electromagnetic compatibility and low electromagnetic interference with the metal interconnects on the same die. The presence of a high-conductivity epitaxial layer, which is common in CMOS ICs but has been neglected in the previous works, is shown to decrease the transmission gain between the antenna pair by approximately 20% (21.60% and 23.78% for n-type and p-type, respectively). It is shown that the electromagnetic radiations from the antennas can cause significant coupling between the metal interconnects and the transmitting antenna depending on the geometry and placement of the interconnects. The design considerations presented in this paper must be integrated into the design process of on-chip antennas.