Leakage current analysis for intra-chip wireless interconnects

A simulation-based feasibility study of an intra-chip wireless interconnect system is presented. The wireless interconnect system is modelled in a 250 nm standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology operating at typical conditions. A finite element method (FEM) based 3-D full-wave solver is used to perform the electromagnetic field analysis. In the field analysis, the effects of the radiation of an intra-chip wireless interconnect system operating at 16 GHz on the circuit devices and local metal interconnects at arbitrary distances from the antennas are investigated. It is shown that the transmission gain between the antennas is mostly unaffected by the presence of local metal interconnects. The transmission scattering parameter (s-parameter) between the radiating antenna and the metal interconnects is below -31.66 dB. The leakage current in the sub-threshold region of the transistors, caused by the antenna radiation induced voltages, is shown to be below 2.2 fA and decreasing with distance from the radiating antenna.