Developments of 60 GHz Antenna and Wireless Interconnect inside Multi-Chip Module for Parallel Processor System

Abstract

In order to carry out the complicated computation inside the high performance computing (HPC) systems, tens to hundreds of parallel processor chips and physical wires are required to be integrated inside the multi-chip package module (MCM). The physical wires considered as the electrical interconnects between the processor chips, however, have the challenges on placements and routings because of the unequal progress between the semiconductor and I/O size reductions. The primary goal of the research is to overcome package design challenges - providing a hybrid computing architecture with implemented 60 GHz antennas as the high efficient wireless interconnect which could generate over 10 Gbps bandwidth on the data transmissions. The dissertation is divided into three major parts. In the first part, two different performance metrics, power loss required to be recovered (PRE) and wireless link budget, on evaluating the antenna's system performance within the chip to chip wireless interconnect are introduced to address the design challenges and define the design goals. The second part contains the design concept, fabrication procedure and measurements of implemented 60 GHz broadband antenna in the application of multi-chip data transmissions. The developed antenna utilizes the periodically-patched artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) structure associated with the ground-shielded conductor in order to enhance the antenna's impedance matching bandwidth. The validation presents that over 10 GHz -10 dB S11 bandwidth which indicates the antenna's operating bandwidth and the horizontal data transmission capability which is required by planar type chip to chip interconnect can be achieved with the design concept. In order to reduce both PRE and wireless link budget numbers, a 60 GHz two-element array in the multi-chip communication is developed in the third part. The third section includes the combined-field analysis, the design concepts on two-element array and feeding circuitry. The simulation results agree with the predicted field analysis and demonstrate the 5dBi gain enhancement in the horizontal direction over a single 60 GHz AMC antenna to further reduce both PRE and wireless link budget numbers.