Study the Performance Analysis of Optical Based VLSI Interconnects

Abstract

Since decades ,performance of computer systems have witnessed a stunning growth at sustained rate .But as the technology is scaling down ,there has been a consequential reduction in dimensions. Hence, problems like increase in resistivity of Cu on-chip wires due to electron scattering start materializing. Also, due to technology scaling reduction in cross section of area of interconnect also severely demean electromigration reliability. The performance of parallel links in traditional electrical devices like Cu and CNT is also restricted by the crosstalk because of coupling . Besides this, on the demand side, the emergence of multicore architectures have placed a premium on high bandwidth density and less delay interconnect between cores. Hence ,one promising candidate to give an efficient solution to the problems associated with the global on-chip electrical interconnects is optical interconnect.This dissertation includes the study and analysis of performance of Optical interconnects. The performance in terms of propagation delay ,power dissipation ,of optical interconnects have been analyzed at 14 nm technology node. SPICE simulations using PTM level 54 model were carried out to endorse the findings. The results acquired from the simulation are compared with the traditionally used copper interconnects and it is noticed that optical interconnects dominate the existing interconnects at distinct technology nodes ranging from 90nm to 14nm.It is also observed that delay offered by optical interconnects follow a decreasing trend with future technology nodes whereas delay of existing copper interconnects increases. At lower frequencies ,the power dissipation in optical interconnects is more as compare to copper interconnect. But as we keep increasing frequency, the power dissipation in the optical interconnects keeps on decreasing as compared to copper interconnects.