Pedro André Martins Bezerra, Florian Krismer, et al.
Electronics (Switzerland)
Granular power delivery with per-core regulation for microprocessor power delivery has the potential to significantly improve the energy efficiency of future data centers. On-chip switched capacitor converters can enable such granular power delivery with per-core regulation given a high efficiency, high power density, fast response time, and high output power converter design. This paper details the implementation of an on-chip switched capacitor voltage regulator in a 32 n m SOI CMOS technology with deep trench capacitors. A novel feedforward control for reconfigurable switched capacitor converters is presented. The feedforward control reduces the output voltage droop following a transient load step. This leads to a reduced minimum microprocessor supply voltage, thereby reducing the overall power consumption of the microprocessor. The implemented on-chip switched capacitor voltage regulator provides a 0.7-1.1 V output voltage from 1.8 V input. It achieves a 85.1% maximum efficiency at 3.2 W/mm2 power density, a subnanosecond response time with improved minimum supply voltage capability, and a maximum output power of 10 W. For an output voltage of 850 m\V, the feedforward control reduces the required voltage overhead by 60 m\V for a transient load step from 10% to 100% of the nominal load. This can reduce the overall power consumption of the microprocessor by 7%.
Pedro André Martins Bezerra, Florian Krismer, et al.
Electronics (Switzerland)
Toke M. Andersen, Florian Krismer, et al.
APEC 2014
Pedro André Martins Bezerra, Florian Krismer, et al.
Electronics (Switzerland)
Toke Meyer Andersen, Florian Krismer, et al.
ISSCC 2014