On-Chip Communication Architectures

490 CHAPTER 13 Emerging On-Chip Interconnect Technologies

RF circuits must operate in the ultra-high frequency domain (i.e., in the

hundreds of GHz range). This makes them unsuitable for applications in

the very near future that will not be able to achieve such high frequen-

cies. However, due to technology scaling, CMOS circuits operating in the

multi-GHz and higher ranges are becoming gradually feasible. It is esti-

mated [6, 64] that by the year 2015, it will become possible to implement

RF circuits operating at 200–250 GHz, which will enable low cost wire-

less interconnect implementation.

(iii) Power overhead: If network fl exibility ...