Fundamentals of Graphene-Enabled Wireless On-Chip Networking

In the broad sense of the term, nanonetworks may refer not just to networks composed of nanosized devices, but also to communication networks enabled by nanotechnology. Nanoscale communication techniques can be suitable to interconnect elements far larger than a few square micrometers in applications subject to strong size constraints or bandwidth requirements. Here, the concept Graphene-enabled Wireless Network-on-Chip (GWNoC) is introduced as a clear example of this category. In GWNoC, graphene plasmonic antennas are used to wirelessly communicate the components of a multicore processor, which are located in the same chip. This shared medium approach is opposed to current chip communication trends and aims to reduce many of the issues that hamper the development of scalable multiprocessor architectures. In this chapter, we describe the scenario and the communication requirements that justify the employment of nanonetworking techniques, as well as the main challenges that still need to be overcome in this new research avenue.