| 摘要 |
Signal communication paths between multiple chips are established through inter-chip electro-magnetic coupling, thereby potentially eliminating mechanical inter-chip contacts and increasing inter-chip interconnection capacity while maximizing chip real estate allocated to a circuit layer. In one embodiment, multiple chips each include a conductive layer, disposed over a circuit layer on a substrate, divided into electro-magnetic coupling device elements such as capacitor plates. When utilizing capacitor plates, chips are arranged face-to-face with opposing chips having mirror image capacitor plate patterns to form a plurality of capacitors. Conventional signal transmission circuits produce time-varying signals which propagate to conventional signal receiving circuits of another chip via an embodiment of electro-magnetic signal communication paths formed by the capacitors. In another embodiment, one of the chips may function as a passive chip carrier that includes a conventional communication path between sets of capacitor plates that capacitively interconnect multiple chips that are facially opposed to the chip carrier. In another embodiment, chips having a capacitive interconnect layer can be combined into arrays with each array arranged in an offset, face-to-face spatial orientation with respect to at least one other array. Because the arrays are offset, one chip may be capacitively coupled to more than one other chip. As a result, any chip may communicate with any other chip by propagating a transmitted signal from chip to chip via capacitor links until received by a destination chip. |
