Broadband Silicon Controlled Channel for Wireless Network-on-Chip at 60 GHz

This paper, which concerns the wireless network concept, presents the characterization and demonstration of silicon propagation channel control performed at around 60 GHz. The aim is to optimize the propagation channel in order to transmit signal in a large frequency band, this for broadcast internal Networks-on-Chip communication application. First, slot antennas in the frequency band [30–67 GHz] directly integrated on high resistivity silicon (HR-Si) surrounded by low-resistivity silicon (LR-Si) were designed and measured. The transmission and matching parameters are presented for inter-element spacings of 6 mm and 14 mm and demonstrate the interest of controlling the propagation channel by using absorbent boundaries from a controllable bias voltage. The results are also compared with the existing literature and show large 3 dB bandwidths. The S-parameters of the measured slot antennas are then integrated and simulated in the time domain using on-off keying (OOK) modulation, making it possible to evaluate the maximum throughput and bit-energy efficiency.