Receiver-Less Optical Clock Injection for Clock Distribution Networks
نویسنده
چکیده
We present a new technique of injecting clocks optically onto CMOS chips without the use of a receiver amplifier. We discuss the benefits of such a direct approach and present proof-ofprinciple experiments of the technique. We analytically compare a receiver-less optical clock distribution and an electrical clock distribution in a fan-out-of-four clock tree to evaluate the timing and power benefits of the optical approach for present microprocessors. We also compare receiver-less direct injection of optical clocks to trans-impedance receiver based injection within the same distribution framework.
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