On-Chip Optical Interconnects: A Viable Approach

Three decades ago Gordon Moore predicted that number of transistors per integrated circuit (IC) would double every two years. Today the high performance ICs are counting upto two billion of transistors and working at 10 GHz clock frequencies. The on chip interconnects are going to be a major bottleneck to the performance of such ICs. The use of copper interconnects & low K dielectrics has provided one time improvement of resistivity and electromigration, but with this the global interconnect performance required for future generations of ICs cannot be achieved. In this paper, optical interconnects which is the most promising approach to interconnect problem has been discussed. Also the performance of opical interconnects and copper interconnects for intrachip global signaling is compared. KeywordsElectrical interconnects, optical interconnects, global interconnects, 3D and RF interconnects.