Realistic end-to-end simulation of the optoelectronic links and comparisonwith the electrical interconnections for system-on-chip applications

A detailed comparison of optoelectronic versus electrical interconnections for system-on-chip applications is performed in terms of signal latency and power consumption. Realistic end-to-end models of both interconnection sch emes are employed in order to evaluate critical performance parameters. A v ariety of electrical and optoelectronic interconnection configurations are implemented and simulated using accurate optical device and electronic circ uit models integrated under an integrated circuit (IC) design computer-aide d design tool. Two commercial complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS ) technologies (0.8 mum and 0.25 mum) are used for the estimation of the si gnal latency and the power consumption as a function of the interconnection length for the different link configurations. It was found that optoelectr onic interconnects outperform their electrical counterparts, under certain conditions, especially for relatively long lines and multichannel data link s.