Wireless chip-to-chip communication in three-dimensional integrated circuits using microbump antennas

Three-dimensional integrated circuits (3-D ICs) present the possibility of high performance computing networks. Complicated wired data communication between 3-D ICs in such networks limits the overall computing performance. Wireless data communication between 3-D ICs can be used to alleviate the latency, flexibility, and expandability issues faced by wired communication. We present a hybrid 3-D IC structure that uses both wireless and wired communications. The wireless communication uses a novel meandering microbump antenna. Simulations show that the proposed antenna has a wide bandwidth (28.3 GHz), allowing high wireless data capacity in several tens of Gbps. The compact size of the antenna and the high wireless data capacity demonstrate the feasibility of a hybrid wired/wireless 3-D IC structure.