Design and characterization of magnetically coupled on-chip current probe for monitoring switching current in chip I/O PDN

In this paper, we present an on-chip embedded current probe that uses magnetic field coupling mechanism to determine on-chip switching current waveform especially in chip I/O power distribution network (PDN). We first investigate the characteristics of magnetic coupling behaviour of proposed on-chip current probing structure in various geometrical design parameters like metal width and ratio of winding turns. And then we explain our current waveform reconstruction technique which is based on time and frequency domain measurement data of our proposed on-chip current probe including magnetically induced voltage measured in time domain and transfer impedance measured in frequency domain. Numerical simulation results and experimental measurement results are shown to demonstrate the magnetic coupling behaviour of our on-chip embedded current probes which are designed using a Samsung 0.13um CMOS process.