Optical and electrical interconnect partition length based on chip-to-chip bandwidth maximization

The lengths beyond which board-level optical waveguides are capable of transferring a larger number of bits per second than electrical interconnects are found for various technology generations. As technology scales from the 130-nm technology node to the 45-nm technology node, the partition length falls from 29 to 8.3 cm due to seven times larger driver-switching frequency and 40% finer waveguide pitches.