As feature sizes scale with silicon process technology and chips become increasingly complex, the design and analysis of on-chip power distribution systems becomes extremely challenging. The goals of this project are to measure supply noise as it is seen by the circuits in various locations on the chip, create systematic techniques to estimate supply noise early in the design process, design active regulation circuits to improve the quality of the on-chip supply voltage, and investigate future alternatives arising from advances in devices, circuits, and packaging.

This project is a part of the VLSI Research Group under Professor Mark Horowitz.

Current Members and Research Areas

• Valentin Abramzon - Supply Noise Measurement

• Bita Nezamfar - Supply Noise Measurement

• Jim Weaver - Supply Network Modeling and Measurement Techniques

Former Members

• Elad Alon

• Vladimir Stojanovic

• Supply Noise Measurement
  • S. Naffziger, B. Stackhouse, T. Grutkowski, D. Josephson, J. Desai, E. Alon, and M. Horowitz, The Implementation of a 2-core, Multi-Threaded Itanium Family Processor, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Jan. 2006

  • V. Abramzon, E. Alon, B. Nezamfar, and M. Horowitz, Scalable Circuits for Supply Noise Measurement, IEEE European Solid-State Circuits Conference, Sept. 2005

  • E. Alon, V. Stojanovic, and M. Horowitz, Circuits and Techniques for High-Resolution Measurement of On-Chip Power Supply Noise, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, April 2005

  • E. Alon, V. Stojanovic, and M. Horowitz, Circuits and Techniques for High-Resolution Measurement of On-Chip Power Supply Noise, IEEE Symposium on VLSI Circuits, June 2004

• Efficient On-Chip Supply Regulation
  • E. Alon and M. Horowitz, Integrated Regulation for Energy-Efficient Digital Circuits, IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, Sept. 2007

  • E. Alon, J. Kim, S. Pamarti, K. Chang, and M. Horowitz, Replica Compensated Linear Regulators for Supply-Regulated Phase-Locked Loops, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Feb. 2006

• Supply Network Modeling and Measurement Techniques
  • J. Weaver and M. Horowitz, Measurement of Via Currents in Printed Circuit Boards Using Inductive Loops, accepted for presentation at IEEE 15th Topical Meeting on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging, Oct. 2006.

Selected Talks and Posters

• Power Supply Integrity: Measurement and Regulation of On-Chip Supply Noise, Ph.D. Orals, May 2006

• Scalable Circuits for Supply Noise Measurement, IEEE European Solid-State Circuits Conference, Sept. 2005

• On-Chip Power Supply Noise Measurement and Regulation Techniques for PLLs, invited to IBM Academy of Technology PLL Best Practices Conference, Sept. 2005

• Circuits and Techniques for High-Resolution Measurement of On-Chip Power Supply Noise, IEEE Symposium on VLSI Circuits, Jun. 2004