The FIRST Interdisciplinary Conference 2023 (FIRST)

Driven by the evolution of commercial applications and user experience, the demand of 5G/6G high-speed communication is increasing rapidly in recent years. Data transmission in millimeter-wave (mm-wave) and subterahertz (sub-THz) is gaining interest to provide widely available bandwidth and meet the requirement for higher capacity and lower latency. Interconnects with low power loss and good signal integrity are necessary for 5G/6G communication network. Among all competitors, air-filled interconnect may play an essential role for 5G/6G applications. Air-filled substrate integrated waveguide (AFSIW) offers an extremely low-loss solution for inner-board transmission. And air-filled dielectric waveguide (AFDW) provides a low-loss solution for intra-device transmission with short-to-medium distance. Moreover, highly-integrated multi-lane AFDWs are expected to achieve communication with even higher throughput. However, the interference issue is critical. To enhance signal integrity of multi-lane AFDW, photonic crystal fence (PCF) can be applied compactly with AFDWs and provide significant crosstalk reduction. These techniques take a key step for the technical race in the 5G/6G high-speed communication in the near future.