Plasmonic interconnects versus conventional interconnects: a comparison of latency, crosstalk and energy costs

The continued scaling of integrated circuits will require advances in intra-chip interconnect technology to minimize delay, density of energy dissipation and cross-talk. We present the first quantitative comparison between the performance of metal wire interconnects, operated in the traditional manner by electric charge and discharge, versus the performance of metal wires operated as surface plasmon waveguides. Surface plasmon wire waveguides have the potential to reduce signal delay, but the high confinement required for low cross-talk amongst high density plasmon wire interconnects significantly increases energy dissipation per transmitted bit, above and beyond that required for electric charge/discharge interconnects at the same density.