Ed. Kyriakis-bitzaros et al., Realistic end-to-end simulation of the optoelectronic links and comparisonwith the electrical interconnections for system-on-chip applications, J LIGHTW T, 19(10), 2001, pp. 1532-1542
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.