Capacitive Coupled Communication

Capacitive coupled communication is a wireless chip to chip communication technology that uses capacitive coupling to transfer signals from a chip to neighboring chips. Its high-bandwidth, low-power, and low-latency chip-to-chip I/O capabilities enable the construction of high-performance and economical multi-chip modules (MCMs). Chips are placed face-to-face (Figure 1), with only a few microns of separation, such that overlapping transceiver circuits communicate through capacitive coupling between top-layer metal pads [1]. By using relatively small metal structures to communicate signals over short distances, capacitive coupled communication directly improves channel density, power, and latency to more closely match the performance of on-chip wires.