SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project seeks to develop integrated voltage regulators that are 20 times smaller than existing DC-DC converters and enable better power management for processors. Modern processors use a large number of voltage domains to improve energy utilization of processing cores and IP blocks. The problem is that each voltage domain requires a separate DC-DC converter and existing converters require board components including inductors, capacitors, power switch and a controller chip. As a result, the number of board components increases dramatically for complex processors that need a large number of voltage domains. This leads to large board area overhead, high component cost and complex board-level power delivery. This project aims to develop a single-die voltage regulator that eliminates all board components and integrates everything in a single die regardless of the number of voltages the regulator needs to provide to the processor. This new regulator will reduce board footprint, which is very important in both mobile and data-center applications, and reduce component cost. This regulator also has the potential to reduce power consumption of processors by up to 30% by enabling more efficient, finer-grain power management. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is reduction in size, cost and power consumption of power delivery solutions for processors and logic chips in a wide range of applications from smartphones to datacenters. In a smartphone, voltage regulators are one of the biggest components other than the battery. While customers demand lighter, thinner smartphones, increasingly more space is required for new features such as 4G communication, micro-projectors and high-resolution cameras. Reducing the size of voltage regulators is critical in creating space for new features in next-generation mobile devices. Moreover, saving processor power using the new regulator can increase battery life. Reducing power and size are not only important for mobile devices, but also for server processors deployed in data-centers necessary to support increasing web traffic. Saving processor power directly translates to lower cooling costs in data-centers and reduction in CO2 emission. By reducing the size of regulators, more processors can be stored in a limited area to create more powerful servers for data-centers without increasing real estate. Impacting processors across the globe, the new regulator has the potential to disrupt the $10B voltage regulator market and enable further innovation in mobile devices and servers

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project seeks to develop integrated voltage regulators (IVR) that are 10 times smaller than existing solutions. Power management ICs (PMICs) are chips in mobile electronic devices that deliver power from the battery to different chips (e.g., processor, memory). Existing PMICs use discrete board-level inductors to efficiently deliver power, but the problem is that inductors occupy a large area on the board. This is especially problematic in space-constrained mobile electronic devices. Mobile device manufacturers put tremendous amounts of effort to reduce square millimeters of board area to make room for additional semiconductor chips for new features. Using IVRs, mobile devices can have extra space that used to be dedicated to bulky discrete components for PMICs, and use that space to either include new chips for new features or increase the battery size for longer battery life. This project will first work on semiconductor test-chip prototypes that prove the idea of IVRs. Then, the next step is to demonstrate it in commercial mobile electronic devices. The goal of the project is to ship IVRs in high-volume smartphones and tablets by replacing existing PMICs.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is in saving board area and processor power consumption in mobile devices, which is crucial for continued innovation in mobile devices. Mobile device manufacturers always look for new features to add in their next generation products to differentiate themselves from competitors. New features often need additional chips, but the problem is that there is simply no area left in the mobile devices for new chips. One way to solve this is to shrink the battery and leave more room for chips, but this is unacceptable since it reduces battery life. The only way to keep introducing new features and chips is to reduce the existing board area. IVRs solve this burning need of mobile devices. Using IVRs, phones and tablets will have extra space in their board to include new features such as micro-projectors and ultra-accurate motion sensing. The technology developed from this project is essential in allowing mobile devices to keep improving with new features. This project aims to have a big impact in the fast-growing smartphone and tablet market with 1 billion and 250 million in annual shipments, respectively.