A technique for incorporation of a heatsink for a system utilizing integrated circuits with wireless connections to an off-chip antenna

Using fins and apertures (7 mm × 1.5 mm) opened in a base-plate of a commercially available heatsink as waveguides, a wireless clock distribution system using an external antenna can be made to work at 24 GHz in the presence of a heatsink. Surprisingly, the presence of heatsink improves power transmission gain by 1-5 dB. The measurements indicate that the receiving antenna size could be reduced to 0.2 mm or less for clock distribution systems using an external antenna.