In-package wireless communication with TSV-based antenna

Network-on-Chip (NoC) has been shown to be the most viable alternative to an interconnect bus for the scalability of the system [1]. On-chip antennas, implementing wireless interconnects, are introduced for improved scalability of NoCs in [2]. On-chip wireless links offer improved network performance due to long distance communication, additional bandwidth, and broadcasting capabilities of antennas. The most prominent on-chip antenna designs are the planar logperiodic and meander which have a surface-propagation of the EM waves of the antenna. The main detriment of these antennas, and surface-propagation in general, is the poor signal attenuation (i.e. path loss) even at small distances of 5mm. This work challenges the on-chip antenna design conventions, and pushes toward a Through-Silicon Via (TSV)- based antenna design called TSV_A that establishes wireless communication through the silicon substrate medium with only a 3 dB loss over a 30mm on-chip distance

TSV-based antenna for on-chip wireless communication

On-chip wireless interconnects provide signal broadcasting and link shortcuts for improved latency and throughput, useful considering the increase of the number of processing elements on a chip. In this work, a through-silicon via antenna (TSV_A) for on-chip wireless communication is proposed. TSV_A significantly improves the wireless interconnect performance over current solutions of on-chip antennas, which occupy a large area of the chip and are not capable of far-reaching transmission. Printed circuit board (PCB) prototypes are designed and fabricated to validate the proposed TSV_A. The PCB prototype of the TSV_A has an insertion loss of 5-10 dB at a distance of similar or equal to 20 mm, measured in PCB and validated with high fidelity 3D finite element method simulation results. TSV_A has improved path loss, smaller size, and lower manufacturing costs due to the well-established TSV fabrication process for 3D-ICs. Projections for an on-chip 3D-IC operation indicate up to 40 dB improved signal strength compared to other on-chip antennas, with an insertion loss of similar or equal to 3-5 dB up to a 30 mm distance

TSV antennas for multi-band wireless communication

On-chip wireless links offer improved network performance due to long distance communication, additional bandwidth, and broadcasting capabilities of antennas. This work challenges the on-chip antenna design conventions, and pushes toward a Through-Silicon Via-based antenna design called TSV_A that establishes multi-band wireless communication through the silicon substrate medium with only a 3 dB loss over a 30mm on-chip distance. The TSV_A performance is evaluated in both Finite Element Method and system-level Network-on-Chip (NoC) simulations. A comparison to traditional wire-based NoCs, analysis of wireless multi-bands, and technology scaling to demonstrate the substantial area improvements compared to traditional wireless NoCs (up to 99.88%) are performed. Simulation results show an improvement in network latency up to similar to 13% (average improvement of similar to 7%), energy-delay improvements of similar to 34% on average, and an improvement in throughput up to similar to 34% (average improvement of similar to 23%), using Wireless NoC with multi-band TSV_As. The improved signal performance of TSV_A, and multi-band capabilities, are ideal for wireless intercell communication for programmable metasurfaces with dedicated communication layers