Performance Based Tuning of an Inductive Integrated Voltage Regulator Driving a Digital Core against Process and Passive Variations

Venakata Chaitanya Krishna Chekuria, Monodeep Karb, Arvind Singhc and Saibal Mukhopadhyayd
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, USA
avchekuri3@gatech.edu
bmkar3@gatech.edu
crathorearvind19@gatech.edu
dsaibal@ece.gatech.edu

ABSTRACT


This paper presents an auto-tuning method for fully integrated voltage regulators (IVRs) driving digital cores against variations in passive as well as process/temperature of the core. The key contribution is to perform auto‐tuning of the coefficients of the feedback loop of the IVR based on the performance of the digital cores. Simulations using a high‐frequency IVR Simulink model and digital logic in 45nm CMOS process shows that the proposed performance driven auto‐tuning demonstrates potential for up to 12% increase in system performance under inductance and threshold variation.

Keywords: IVR, Auto tuning, Delay based tuning, Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS)



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