Power dissipation in optical clock distribution network for high performance ICs

Conventional metal interconnects based clock distribution will suffer from both timing uncertainty and power dissipation problems in the future. We present the power dissipation in an optical interconnect based global clock and compare it with metal wires. The key power dissipation source for optical interconnects is the receiver. We have identified the important parameters effecting its power and quantified the power trends with these parameters. Upon studying the power scaling at future technology nodes, we have found that despite higher bandwidth requirements (higher clock frequency), it can reduce power, provided reasonably high optical power is available. We also find that optical interconnect based global clock dissipates less power compared to metal based interconnects.