Fast signal propagation for point to point on-chip long interconnects using current sensing

As IC technology progresses into very deep submicron regime, signal propagation on long interconnects is becoming a major bottleneck in the performance of large circuits. Theoretical analysis presented in this paper indicate that a factor of three improvement in speed can be achieved when using the current-mode approach rather than the conventional voltage-mode operation. Moreover, we propose a novel circuit for current sensing receiver which can be used for uni-directional and bi-directional communication. Simulation results show an improvement of 32% in speed and 27% less power consumption at high data rates in 0.13µm CMOS technology for 10 mm long on-chip wires.