Approaching Speed-of-light Distortionless Communication for On-chip Interconnect

We extend the surfliner on-chip distortionless transmission line scheme and provide more details for the implementation issues. Surfliner seeks to approach distortionless transmission by intentionally adding shunt resistors between the signal line and the ground. In theory if we distributively make the shunt conductance G=RC/L, there is no distortion at the receiver end and the signal propagates at the speed of light. We show the feasibility and advantages of this shunt resistor scheme by a real design case of single-ended microstrip line in 0.10mum technology. The simulation results indicate we can achieve near perfect signaling of 10 Gbps data over a 10 mm serial link, yet no pre-emphasis/equalization or other special techniques are needed. Guidelines for determining the optimal value and spacing of the shunt resistors are also provided.