3D ICs: An Opportunity for Fully-Integrated, Dense and Efficient Power Supplies

Gaël Pillonnet (1) , Nicolas Jeanniot (2, 1) , Pascal Vivet (1)

1 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information
2 CPE - École Supérieure de Chimie Physique Électronique de Lyon

With 3D technologies, the in-package solution allows integrated, efficient and granular power supplies to be designed for multi-core processors. As the converter design obtains few benefits from the scaling, 3DIC allows the best technology to be chosen i.e. one which suits the DC-DC converter design. This paper evaluates the achievable power efficiency between on-die and in-package converters using a combination of active (28 and 65nm CMOS nodes) and passive (poly, MIM, vertical capacitor) layers. Based on the same load power consumption, on-die and in-package switched capacitor converters achieve 65% and 78% efficiency, respectively, in a 1mm 2 silicon area. An additional high density capacitance layer (100nF/mm 2) improves efficiency by more than 20 points in 65nm for the same surface which emphasizes the need for dedicated technology for better power management integration. This paper shows that in-package power management is a key alternative for fully-integrated, dense and efficient power supplies.

Mots clés: Fully-integrated power supply; switched capacitor converter; multi-core; on-chip voltage regulator; 3D power management

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

Gaël Pillonnet, Nicolas Jeanniot, Pascal Vivet. 3D ICs: An Opportunity for Fully-Integrated, Dense and Efficient Power Supplies. IEEE International 3D Systems Integration Conference, Aug 2015, Sendai, Japan. ⟨hal-01217670⟩