Efficient simulation-based optimization of power grid with on-chip voltage regulator

IR-drop values of power grid can be reduced through inserting on-chip low-dropout voltage regulators (LDO). In this paper, we explore the optimization of LDOs to meet the IR-drop constraint, where the maximum IR-drop value is less than 10% of power supply. With Cholesky direct solver and SPICE, we propose a method to simulate power grid with LDOs. Based on the simulation method, we develop an efficient flow to optimize the number and locations of the LDOs. Effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by the experimental results. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work optimizing the number and locations of LDOs to meet the IR-drop constraint.