PhD Defense of Kevin MOROT

Today, the constant growth of telecommunication networks leads to favor optical transmissions instead of electrical ones. The photonic interposer is proposed to integrate an electro-optical transmitter as close as possible to the electrical dice. The work presented in this thesis aims to optimize the propagation performances of the 100 Gbps electrical signal conveyed though the three-dimensional interconnect network of the interposer. A first study shows that the high-speed signals transmission by the front-side should be prioritized for the current technology. The transmission between to dice does not exceed 2.3 mm, implying to place the inputs and outputs at the periphery of the dice or to integrate additional active functions to regenerate the signal along its path. The development and application of scalable interconnect models leads to technology and design recommendations in order to improve the performances of 3D interconnect chains. The performances enabled through the application of ground-breaking technological solutions, such as thick conductor integration in RDL layer, are evaluated for the die-to-die and die-to-BGA communication scenarios. As a results, the maximal reach of the front-side path is increased by 26 %. Furthermore, it becomes then possible to route through the backside of the interposer over a 144 % greater distance and by consuming 66% less energy than the reference case in a standard substrate. These results provide more flexible routing strategies making the proposed photonic interposer a promising solution for future data-center applications.