Power Noise and Near-Field EMI of High-Current System-in-Package With VR Top and Bottom Placements

Abstract

Integrated voltage regulators (IVRs) support an increasing number of voltage domains while enhancing the transient response and enabling fine-grained dynamic voltage frequency scaling. A voltage regulator (VR)-on-package is a promising IVR topology, which supports high-voltage transmission within a printed circuit board and package, leading to lower distribution loss. A power delivery network within a VR-on-package environment is presented in this paper. This paper also presents a study of VR top- and bottom-placement topologies within a system-in-package environment in terms of electromagnetic interference (EMI) and power integrity. This comparative analysis targets a specific server package application, and the power integrity evaluation is focused on the power delivery network between the VR and IC. The VR top-placement topology exhibits more than $3\times $ less EMI and 15.3% lower worse case IR drop as compared with the VR bottom-placement topology. The tradeoffs are, however, a greater package power loss and higher package cost due to the larger number of package layers in the VR top-placement topology. The VR top-placement topology exhibits a 52.6% higher power loss through the package than the VR bottom-placement topology.