Optical interconnects for future high performance integrated circuits

Miniaturization paradigm leads to a rapid performance deterioration of Copper wires in the future, despite lower dielectric constant materials between the lines. This work examines optical interconnects as an alternative for high performance silicon integrated circuits, and compares it with future metal interconnects. Both global signaling and clock distribution applications are considered. For clocking, power dissipation, where as, for global signaling, both power and delay are compared with metal-based interconnects. We show that for high switching activity, long global signaling wires, it is favorable to switch to optical interconnects on both power and delay account. Whereas, a metal-based interconnect system is more favorable for shorter links. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.