Through-Wafer Optical Interconnects for Multi-Wafer Wafer-Scale Integrated Architectures

Optical interconnects have received considerable recent attention in the literature as a possible means of alleviating interconnect delays and improving signal quality in present and future VLSI systems. Currently, however, implementation of optics below a certain level in the interconnection hierarchy requires significant tradeoffs involving power, bandwidth, delay, interconnect density, fault tolerance and system physical geometry.