Pulsed current-mode signaling for nearly speed-of-light intrachip communication

Author

Jose, Anup P. ; Patounakis, George ; Shepard, Kenneth L.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Columbia Univ., New York, NY, USA

Volume

41

Issue

4

fYear

2006

fDate

4/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

772

Lastpage

780

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the design of on-chip repeater-less interconnects with nearly speed-of-light latency. Sharp current-pulse data transmission is used to modulate transmitter energy to higher frequencies, where the effect of wire inductance is maximized, allowing the on-chip wires to function as transmission lines with considerably reduced dispersion. A prototype 8-Gb/s serial link employing this pulsed current-mode signaling in a 0.18-μm CMOS process is described and measured.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; current-mode circuits; high-speed integrated circuits; integrated circuit interconnections; 0.18 micron; 8 Gbit/s; CMOS process; current-pulse data transmission; high-speed integrated circuits; intrachip communication; on-chip repeater-less interconnects; on-chip wires; pulsed current-mode signaling; speed-of-light latency; transmission lines; transmitter energy; wire inductance; Data communication; Delay; Dispersion; Frequency; Inductance; Prototypes; Pulse measurements; Repeaters; Transmitters; Wire; High-speed integrated circuits; integrated circuit interconnections; on-chip communication; serial links; transmission lines;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSSC.2006.870922

Filename

1610621