IC power distribution challenges

With each technology generation, delivering a time-varying current with reduced nominal supply voltage variation is becoming more difficult due to increasing current and power requirements. The power delivery network design becomes much more complex and requires accurate analysis and optimizations at all levels of abstraction in order to meet the specifications. We describe techniques for estimation of the supply voltage variations that can be used in the design of the power delivery network. We also describe the decoupling capacitor hierarchy that provides a low impedance to the increasing high-frequency current demand and limits the supply voltage variations. Techniques for high-level power estimation that can be used for performance vs. power trade-offs to reduce the current and power requirements of the circuit are also presented.