Automated Design of Stable Power Delivery Systems for Heterogeneous IoT Systems

Abstract

Abstract-Efficiently and reliably managing high quality power is a primary challenge in Internet of Things (IoT) systems. Based on current projections, future IoT will provide vast interconnectedness of embedded devices and sensors, many of which will be powered up wirelessly from spatially distributed power supplies or locally from energy harvesting sources. The energy budget, constrained by inherently lower quality of power of these non-traditional power sources, will become a critical system resource and a primary limiting factor for scalability of future IoT systems. Distributed on-chip power regulation is necessary for efficiently delivering high quality power to high performance heterogeneous integrated circuits (ICs). A multi- feedback system with distributed on-chip power supplies deliver- ing current to billions of non-linear circuits is characterized by complex interactions among the heterogeneous power supplies and loads. These modern multi-feedback systems exhibit high design complexity and degraded stability. No straightforward method exists to efficiently design a stable multi-feedback power delivery system. An automated design and analysis flow for stable, high quality power delivery is proposed in this work based on the passivity of heterogeneous integrated systems. The algorithm is evaluated based on ISPD benchmark circuits and shows that the generated power delivery system addresses both the quality of power (QoP) and stability requirements. A distributed power delivery system is designed based on the passivity criterion and fabricated in 28 nm CMOS technology. The system is tested under a wide range of load, voltage, and temperature variations that are typical for modern heterogeneous ICs. The system exhibits high performance and stable response.