On-Chip Wireless Interconnection with Integrated Antennas

Kihong Kim, Hyun Yoon, and Kenneth K. 0

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, SiMICs
539 Eng. Bldg., University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 3261 1, USA
Tel: 352-392-6276, Fax: 352-392-8381, e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract mitting antennas is 1 cm for all antenna pairs except for the
The feasibility of integrated antennas for a wireless clock antenna pairs used to generate Figs. 11 and 12.
distribution system is investigated. A wide range of linear, Experimental Results
meander, zigzag dipole, and loop antennas on 10 and 20 51
The set-up used for S-parameter measurements of on-
cm silicon and SOS substrates has been experimentally evalu- chip antennas is shown in Fig. 4. The set-up consists of a vec-
ated. A 2-mm long, 30-pm wide, 30-degree zigzag dipole tor network analyzer, baluns, signal-signal probes, and a
antenna pair on a 20 51cm silicon substrate has -56 dB of probe station [3]. Since the ports of the network analyzer are
transmission gain near 18 GHz. A loopzigzag pair shows unbalanced and the dipole antennas are balanced, baluns and
similar gain. The loop antenna with a compact size and an signal-signal probes were used to reduce the balanced-to-
isotropic radiation pattern is ideal for a transmitter antenna. unbalanced mismatch loss. Wafers are measured on a block
Introduction of wood (6 mm thick) on a metal chuck of the probe station.
The increases in operating frequency and projected die The phase delay between receiving and transmitting
size to 4 x 2.5 cm2 for CMOS circuits have led to the concept antennas is extracted from S-parameters and is shown in Fig.
for wireless communications within and between ICs using 5 . The plot shows that the phase delay has almost linear rela-
microwaves which enables signal distribution at the speed of tionship with frequency, which illustrates that the signal cou-
light, and provides an additional means for signal distribu- pling between the receiving and transmitting antennas occurs
tion. A potential application is wireless clock distribution, through wave propagation rather than simple RC coupling.
proposed as an alternative capable of distributing high fre- The power transmission relation between a receiving and
a transmitting antenna is represented by Friis transmission
quency clock [I]. The wireless clock distribution system con-
sists of a clock transmitter, located on or off chip, formula [4] given below.
broadcasting a microwave global clock signal at frequencies
-20 GHz or higher, and a grid of integrated clock receivers P,/P,=IS21 12=( 1- q2)[
1-lrJ2)( GtG,h2/(4~R)2] (1)
(Fig. 1 (a)). The signal picked up by a receiving antenna is
divided down to the system clock frequency (-2.5 GHz) (Fig. In this equation, the first two terms represents mismatch loss
1 (b)), and locally distributed using a conventional clock tree. at the receiving and transmitting ends, and the last term rep-
For this type of systems, integration of compact antennas is resents the actual antenna transmission gain (G,) between the
critical. The high frequency clock transmission reduces the receiving and transmitting antennas. In this paper, the
antenna size due to a decreased wavelength. The antenna size antenna transmission gain (G,) has been used to compare
is largely set by the power gain requirement for the transmit- antenna characteristics and is computed from measurements
ting and receiving antennas, which is in turn set by the power using
delivered to the transmitting antenna and the sensitivity of the
clock receiver. This paper reports approaches to improve on-
chip linear, meander, zigzag dipole [2], and loop antennas,
and suggests the feasibility of using them for communication
in an area around a radius of 2 cm. G, is the antenna transmission gain when the receiving and
Antenna Test Structure transmitting antennas are perfectly matched.
Fig. 6 shows a G, versus antenna length plot for dipoles
The antenna test structures were fabricated using a single fabricated on a 20-Q-cm substrate at 15 GHz. The metal
Aluminum level process with no passivation. The thickness width of the antennas is 10 pm. The plot shows that the 5-
of the metal line is 2 pm.The test chips (Fig. 2) include linear, mm antenna pair has -30 dB higher gain than the l-mm
meander, zigzag dipole, and loop antennas. The area of antenna pair. A zigzag antenna pair has higher gain than a
testchips is -5 x 4 cm2, which is bigger than that projected by linear dipole antenna pair. Impedances of the zigzag dipole
the road map. The micro-photographs of the antennas are antennas are computed from the measured S-parameters and
shown in Fig. 3. The distance between receiving and trans- are shown in Fig. 7. The impedance of an on-chip antenna
consists of the radiation impedance and impedance associ-

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0-7803-6438-4/00/$10.00 02000 IEEE IEDM 00-485
 ated with the metal structure and substrate. The plot shows radiation pattern on the wafer plane, and was measured using
that at 15 GHz, the 1-mm antenna has the highest resistance, loopzigzag dipole antenna pairs. Fig. 14 shows G, of loop
which is mostly due to the high substrate resistance compo- antennas with 5 different metal widths. Loop antennas show
nent. For 2-mm and up, as the antenna is lengthened, the similar gain dependence on metal widths as the dipole anten-
resistance increases. This is due to a decrease of the substrate nas. Since a loop antenna has an isotropic radiation pattern
resistance component and an increase of the radiation and and compact size, it can be a good transmitting antenna.
loss resistance. The 5-mm antenna shows the lowest reac- Discussion
tance due to the highest metal-to-substrate parasitic capaci-
tance. Fig. 8 shows a G, versus the metal width plot at 15 There are three main paths for electromagnetic wave
GHz for 2-mm long zigzag dipole antennas. A 10-dB gain transmission from an on-chip antenna [6].One path is along
increase can be achieved by widening the antennas from 2.5 the surface (surface wave) and the other two are through and
pm to 30 pm. The gain increase is attributed to the lower loss below the substrate (Fig. 15). Fig. 16 shows G, of a zigzag
resistance of antenna arms, which increases the power effi- dipole pair on a metal plate and on a block of wood. The
ciency. The measurements also show that the gain increase antenna separation is 0.5 cm. When an on-chip antenna pair
slows for widths greater than 10 pm. Fig. 9 shows a G, ver- on a 20-Q-cm substrate is put on a metal plate, the surface
sus bend angle plot for zigzag dipole antennas. The bend wave dominates. When it is put on a block of wood, all three
angle is the angle between two neighboring arm elements as paths are possible. The antenna p k r on a wood block has at
shown in the inset of Fig. 9. The metal width and axial length least 3-dB higher gain. This suggests that a significant portion
of the antennas are 10 ym and 2 mm. The antenna with a of power is transmitted through and below the substrate.
bend angle of 30 degree has -6 dB higher gain than the Inside of ICs, a large number of metal structures are present
antenna with a bend angle of 120-degree. as shown in Fig.15. In that case, antennas can be imple-
The measurements discussed thus far were made with mented with the lowest level metal, and using a dielectric
antennas on a 20 Q-cm silicon substrate with a 9-pm thick layer more compatible to IC packaging than a block of wood
oxide layer. In order to study the gain dependence on sub- or a thicker higher resistivity silicon substrate, it should be
strate, the antennas were fabricated on 10 and 20 SZcm sili- possible to propagate a signal through and below the sub-
con substrates with an 1, 3, or 9 pm oxide layer, and an SOS strate.
substrate. The antenna transmission gains were measured Conclusion
using 2-mm 120-degree zigzag dipole antennas (Fig. 10).
-
The antennas on a 20-Q-cm substrate show 7 dB higher
A 7.4 GHz clock receiver in a 0.25-ym CMOS technology
can lock to a -43 dBm input signal [5].According to Fig. 11,
gain than the antennas on a 10-Q-cm substrate. The measure-
a 2-mm zigzag dipole antenna pair with a 2-cm separation has
ments also show that the oxide thickness does not signifi-
cantly affect the gain for the antennas on the 20-0-cm -56dB gain near 18 GHz. Since the gains of dipole and loop-
dipole pairs are comparable near I8 GHz, these impIy that if
substrate. Since antennas on an SOS substrate do not suffer
the antennas, receiver and transmitter are matched, then, in
from the substrate loss, these antennas show the highest gain
the absence of interference structure, a clock receiver with a
(-35 dB at 15 GHz). The impedance measurements show that
zigzag dipole antenna 2 cm away from a transmitter using an
the oxide thickness mainly affects the reactance while keep-
isotropic loop antenna should be able lock to a 20-dBm clock
ing the resistance almost the same.
signal delivered to the transmitting antenna. If the operating
Based on these results, 2-mm long, 30-pm wide, 30-
frequency is increased, the required transmission power is
degree zigzag dipole antenna pairs with a separation of 1 and
expected to be lowered.
2 cm are implemented and their G, versus frequency plots are
shown in Fig. 11. The antennas were fabricated on a 3-ym References
oxide layer on a 20-0-cm silicon substrate. The gain [l] K. 0,et al., Inter and Intra-Chip Wireless Clock Signal Distri-
increases with frequency and decreasing separation. G, is - - bution Using Microwaves: A Status of an Initial Feasibility Study,
56 dB for the 2-cm separation near 18 GHz. Fig. 11 also 1999 GOMAC (Invited), pp 306-309.
shows that S21 for an open structure consisting of pads is at [2] H. Nakano, et al., Shortening Ratios of Modified Dipole Anten-
the noise floor which is around -30 dB lower than S21 for the nas, IEEE Trans. on AP, v 32, n 4, Apr 1984, p. 385.
1-cm separation case. [3] K. Kim and K. 0, Integrated Dipole Antennas on Silicon Sub-
Fig. 12 shows G, measurements for a loop-zigzag dipole strates for Intra-Chip Communication, 1999 IEEE AP-S Int. Symp.,
antenna pair. The loop antenna has a single loop with a diam- pp 1582-1585.
[4] C. A. Balanis, Antenna Theory, Harper & Row 1982.
eter of 200 ym and metal width of 30 ym. The zigzag dipole [5] B. Floyd, K. Kim, and K. 0, Wireless Interconnection in a
is the same as that used to generate Fig. 11. The gain of the CMOS IC with Integrated Antennas, ISSCC Digest, Feb, 2000, pp
loop-zigzag pair is similar to that of a 2-mm zigzag dipole 328-329.
pair near 18 GHz. G, is -60 dB for the 2-cm separation near [6] K. Kim, Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Florida, 2000.
18 GHz. As shown in Fig. 13, loop antennas have an isotropic

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486-IEDM 00
 6 -200

I T=Transmitter
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R=Receiver 5 -400

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Frequency(GHz)
Fig. 5 Phase delay vs frequency.
Frequency
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1 Analog
Buffers
output
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-Zigzag
(b)
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of wireless clock
distribution system (a) and clock receiver (b).
'
2OR-cm substrate

Antenna Length(")
Fig. 6 G , vs axial length at 15 GHz.

200 -
c 100 -
h 0 0 0
v

0 - oResistance
Fig. 2 An antenna test chip.
: XReactance X

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-300 X

-400; . 2' . 3'

Length(")
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5

Fig. 7 Impedance vs axial length at 15 GHz.

Fig. 3 Microphtographs of linear (a), meander (b), zigzag (c) U Meander

dipole, and loop (d) antennas.
n n n

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Port 1 Balun
d 2OR-cm substrate
HP851OC -70 9-pm oxide
VNA Length: 2mm
-
I I -/- -80; I
10 20 30
Width (pn)
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Fig. 8 G , vs metal width at 15 GHz.
Fig. 4 The set-up for on-chip dipole antenna characterization.

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IEDM 00-487
 18
20R-cm substrate

60 90 120 150
Bend Angle (Degree)
270
Fig. 9 G, vs bend angle at 15 GHz.
Loop: Diameter 200 pm,metal width 10 pm
-30 Fig. 13 Radiation pattem of a loop antenna and a layout of a loop-

-40 1 zigzag antenna pair.

-50

Fig. 10 G, vs resistivity and oxide thickness of a 2-mm long,

10-pm wide, 120 degree zigzag dipole antenna pair at 15 GHz.
-58'
0
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10
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20
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30
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Metal width (pm)
Fig. 14 G, vs metal width measurements of loop antennas.

-60

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Frequency (GHz)
16 18

Fig. 11 G, and S a l of 2-mm long, 30-mm wide, 30-degree zig-

zag dipole antenna pairs with a separation of 1 and 2 cm:
\/
Wave paths

Fig. 15 Cross sections of antennas with metal lines in bulk silicon.

-401 - I . I . v . i

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-70

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1 . 1 .
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10 12 14 16 18 -gor
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15 18
Frequency(GHz)
Frequency(GHz)
Fig. 12 G, for loop-zigzag dipole pairs. Fig. 16 G,of a zigzag dipole pair on metal and on wood.

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