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Surfliner: Speed of Light On-Chip Signaling

Technology Benefits

Application of the Surfliner scheme will enable an 80 percent reduction in both the delay and power consumption of traditional wires. Further, Surfliner is robust against process variations, ensuring low latency and an indifference to feature size.

Detailed Technology Description

Researchers at UC San Diego have developed a revolutionary scheme for on-chip clock distribution and signaling between CPU's, memory, and DSP devices. The scheme applies techniques from traditional transmission line theory to effect speed-of-light (5ps/mm) signal propagation. Furthermore, the received pulse, although slightly attenuated, is crisp without impact from RC time constants as seen in traditional designs. The above figure demonstrates a modeled clock pulse (left most square wave) as propagated through a wire length with and without the benefit of Surfliner. The smaller square wave shows the pulse as transmitted with the benefit of Surfliner. The larger decaying transient waveform demonstrates the as transmitted pulse without Surfliner. Although diminished in amplitude, the Surfliner pulse is crisp and easily read and/or regenerated, eliminating the possibility of inter-symbol interference even at speed-of-light clock rates.

Supplementary Information

Patent Number: US8063713B2
Application Number: US2007993833A
Inventor: Cheng, Chung-Kuan | Chen, Hongyu
Priority Date: 29 Jun 2005
Priority Number: US8063713B2
Application Date: 23 Jan 2008
Publication Date: 22 Nov 2011
IPC Current: H01P000304
US Class: 333004 | 333005 | 333081A
Assignee Applicant: The Regents of the University of California
Title: Differential transmission line having a plurality of leakage resistors spaced between the transmission line
Usefulness: Differential transmission line having a plurality of leakage resistors spaced between the transmission line
Summary: For differential transmission line e.g. integrated circuits.
Novelty: Electrically conducting device for differential transmission line, has leakage resistors that are connected between conductors at equal distance to make phase velocity and electrical signal to be independent of frequency

Industry

Electronics

Sub Category

Semiconductor

Application No.

8063713

Others

State Of Development

Surfliner has been successfully simulated and fabrication of a proto-type Surfliner enabled device is pending. Surfliner is patent pending with license rights available.

Tech ID/UC Case

21134/2005-207-0

Related Cases

2005-207-0

*Abstract

None

*IP Issue Date

Nov 22, 2011

*Principal Investigator

Name: Chung Kuan Cheng

Department:

Name: Hongyu Chen

Department:

Country/Region

USA