High-Efficiency Micromachined Sub-THz Channels for Low-Cost Interconnect for Planar Integrated Circuits

• Published in: IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques Vol. 64; no. 1; pp. 96 - 105
• Main Authors: Bo Yu, Yuhao Liu, Yu Ye, Junyan Ren, Xiaoguang Liu, Gu, Qun Jane
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.01.2016
• Subjects: Bandwidth; Channel; Channels; Design optimization; dielectric waveguide; Dielectric waveguides; Dielectrics; Integrated circuit interconnections; interconnect; Interconnections; micromachined; Micromachining; Micromechanics; Microwaves; Optical waveguides; Propagation losses; Silicon; sub-THz; terahertz (THz)
• ISSN: 0018-9480; 1557-9670
• DOI: 10.1109/TMTT.2015.2504443

This paper presents for the first time the design, fabrication, and demonstration of a micromachined silicon dielectric waveguide based sub-THz interconnect channel for a high-efficiency, low-cost sub-THz interconnect, aiming to solve the long-standing intrachip/interchip interconnect problem. Careful studies of the loss mechanisms in the proposed sub-THz interconnect channel are carried out to optimize the design. Both theoretical and experimental results are provided with good agreement. To guide the channel design, a new figure of merit is also defined. The insertion loss of this first prototype with a 6-mm-long interconnect channel is about 8.4 dB at 209.7 GHz, with a 3-dB bandwidth of 12.6 GHz.