DocumentCode
262070
Title
5.2 Distributed system of digitally controlled microregulators enabling per-core DVFS for the POWER8TM microprocessor
Author
Toprak-Deniz, Zeynep ; Sperling, Michael ; Bulzacchelli, John ; Still, Gregory ; Kruse, Rudolf ; Seongwon Kim ; Boerstler, David ; Gloekler, Tilman ; Robertazzi, Raphael ; Stawiasz, Kevin ; Diemoz, Timothy ; English, George ; Hui, Deng ; Muench, Paul ; Fr
Author_Institution
IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA
fYear
2014
fDate
9-13 Feb. 2014
Firstpage
98
Lastpage
99
Abstract
Integrated voltage regulator modules (iVRMs) [1] provide a cost-effective path to realizing per-core dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS), which can be used to optimize the performance of a power-constrained multi-core processor. This paper presents an iVRM system developed for the POWER8™ microprocessor, which functions as a very fast, accurate low-dropout regulator (LDO), with 90.5% peak power efficiency (only 3.1% worse than an ideal LDO). At low output voltages, efficiency is reduced but still sufficient to realize beneficial energy savings with DVFS. Each iVRM features a bypass mode so that some of the cores can be operated at maximum performance with no regulator loss. With the iVRM area including the input decoupling capacitance (DCAP) (but not the output DCAP inherent to the cores), the iVRMs achieve a power density of 34.5W/mm2, which exceeds that of inductor-based or SC converters by at least 3.4× [2].
Keywords
microprocessor chips; voltage regulators; DCAP; LDO; POWER8 microprocessor; SC converter; cost-effective path; digitally controlled microregulators; distributed system; iVRM system; inductor-based converters; input decoupling capacitance; integrated voltage regulator modules; low-dropout regulator; output DCAP; per-core DVFS; per-core dynamic voltage and frequency scaling; power density; power-constrained multicore processor; regulator loss; Loading; Logic gates; Microprocessors; Program processors; Regulators; Voltage control; Voltage measurement;
fLanguage
English
Publisher
ieee
Conference_Titel
Solid-State Circuits Conference Digest of Technical Papers (ISSCC), 2014 IEEE International
Conference_Location
San Francisco, CA
ISSN
0193-6530
Print_ISBN
978-1-4799-0918-6
Type
conf
DOI
10.1109/ISSCC.2014.6757354
Filename
6757354
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