Single-Inductor–Multiple-Tier Regulation: TSV-Inductor-Based On-Chip Buck Converters for 3-D IC Power Delivery

On-chip inductive buck converters gain popularity due to their higher efficiency at higher load currents compared to its linear and capacitive counterparts. Through-silicon-via inductors (TSV-Inductors) in 3-D integrated circuit (3-D IC) technology can be used for the buck converter implementation that reduces the metal resource consumption of the inductor. However, in 3-D ICs, the regulated voltage from buck converters might be required for multiple tiers. Simply designing one buck converter per tier is apparently resource consuming. This paper fully utilizes the feature of TSV-Inductor and temporal/spatial sharing techniques to enable single-inductor–multiple-tier regulation for 3-D ICs. Experimental results suggest that under the same design specifications and resource consumption, the TSV-Inductor-based time multiplexing buck converter (TMBC) and the shared inductor buck converter (SIBC) help increase the efficiency by up to 15% and 25%, respectively, compared with the conventional power delivery scheme using one TSV-Inductor-based buck converter per tier. Moreover, the ripples of the TSV-Inductor-based TMBC and SIBC can be reduced by up to $3\times $ and $6\times $ , respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the very first work exploring buck converter sharing between multiple tiers in 3-D ICs.

[1]  Eby G. Friedman,et al.  Power Noise in TSV-Based 3-D Integrated Circuits , 2013, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[2]  Yiyu Shi,et al.  Through-silicon-via inductor: Is it real or just a fantasy? , 2014, 2014 19th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC).

[3]  Yuan Xie,et al.  Processor Design in 3D Die-Stacking Technologies , 2007, IEEE Micro.

[4]  Yiyu Shi,et al.  PWM-controlled DC-DC converter designs in 3D ICs using through-silicon-via inductors , 2016, 2016 China Semiconductor Technology International Conference (CSTIC).

[5]  Gyu-Hyeong Cho,et al.  12.5 An error-based controlled single-inductor 10-output DC-DC buck converter with high efficiency at light load using adaptive pulse modulation , 2015, 2015 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference - (ISSCC) Digest of Technical Papers.

[6]  R. Harjani,et al.  A High-Efficiency DC–DC Converter Using 2 nH Integrated Inductors , 2008, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[7]  Umamaheswara Rao Tida,et al.  Novel Through-Silicon-Via Inductor-Based On-Chip DC-DC Converter Designs in 3D ICs , 2014, JETC.

[8]  Yiyu Shi,et al.  Opportunistic through-silicon-via inductor utilization in LC resonant clocks: Concept and algorithms , 2014, 2014 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD).

[9]  Fern Nee Tan.  Design and optimization of package inductor for efficient power rail merger , 2014, 36th International Electronics Manufacturing Technology Conference.

[10]  Xinhai Bian,et al.  Simulation and modeling of wafer level silicon-base spiral inductor , 2012, 2012 13th International Conference on Electronic Packaging Technology & High Density Packaging.

[11]  Yiyu Shi,et al.  Dynamic Frequency Scaling Aware Opportunistic Through-Silicon-Via Inductor Utilization in Resonant Clocking , 2020, IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems.

[12]  Hsien-Hsin S. Lee,et al.  3D-MAPS: 3D Massively parallel processor with stacked memory , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference.

[13]  Franco Maloberti,et al.  Single-Inductor Multiple-Output Dc-Dc Converters , 2009 .

[14]  S. Deleonibus,et al.  3D CMOS integration: Introduction of dynamic coupling and application to compact and robust 4T SRAM , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Integrated Circuit Design and Technology and Tutorial.

[15]  Peter Ramm,et al.  Through-Silicon Via Technologies for Extreme Miniaturized 3D Integrated Wireless Sensor Systems (e-CUBES) , 2008, 2008 International Interconnect Technology Conference.

[16]  Timothy J. Slegel,et al.  Robust power management in the IBM z13 , 2015, IBM J. Res. Dev..

[17]  Kaladhar Radhakrishnan,et al.  Package Inductors for Intel Fully Integrated Voltage Regulators , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology.

[18]  G. Patounakis,et al.  A fully integrated on-chip DC-DC conversion and power management system , 2004, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[19]  Mingliang Wang.  Integrated power inductors in silicon for compact DC -DC converters in portable electronics , 2010 .

[20]  Chin-Long Wey,et al.  Reliable Power Delivery System Design for Three-Dimensional Integrated Circuits (3D ICs) , 2012, 2012 IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI.

[21]  Yiyu Shi,et al.  On the Efficacy of Through-Silicon-Via Inductors , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems.

[22]  Aida Todri,et al.  On Analysis of On-chip DC-DC Converters for Power Delivery Networks , 2015, 2015 IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI.