SBIR Phase I: Fast Slewing Voltage Regulator for Package Integrated Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling Applications

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will be to dramatically decrease power consumption and significantly reduce the voltage regulator footprint while still deploying standard CMOS semiconductor processes. This project will develop products that will lead the commercial trend toward in-package voltage regulators, and will increase the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry. The reduced size and cost, and the ability for the chip to be placed in the package, enables the various system components to have their own voltage regulator, which, due to the faster slew rate, results in the ability for devices to host the increasingly sophisticated applications necessary for big data and other advanced applications. In addition, the use of the technology developed under this project in data centers will translate to more energy-efficient electronic infrastructure that contributes less to the nation's CO2 emissions and their impact on climate and the environment. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project seeks to develop an in-package voltage regulator based on the company's novel proprietary architecture that will dramatically decrease power consumption, significantly reduce the voltage regulator footprint, and increase slew rates, while still remaining within the circle of standard CMOS processes. For the last 40 years the buck DC-to-DC voltage regulator (VR) has been used to convert line- or battery-powered DC voltages to supply these System ICs. IC makers have optimized the efficiency of these VRs to saturation. To achieve the next step function in system efficiency, the power dissipation in the SoC itself must be improved with new methodologies to balance needed versus delivered power. Meanwhile there is an insatiable desire to reduce the volume of these electronic products both in industry and consumer markets. The company's integrated voltage regulator technology will address these challenges by dramatically decreasing power consumption at its load: the system IC. Its new modulator architecture with switching frequencies orders of magnitude faster than today's buck VRs will also significantly reduce the size of the voltage regulator and thus system footprint while remaining economically competitive with high volume IC processes.