Plug-and-play multi-core voltage regulator could lead to ‘smarter’ smartphones
Kim’s research at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) showed in 2008 that fine-grain voltage control was a theoretical possibility.
He recently presented a paper at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) showing that the MCVR could actually be implemented in hardware. Essentially a DC-DC converter, the MCVR can take a 2.4 V input and scale it down to voltages ranging from 0.4 to 1.4 V. Built for speed, it can increase or decrease the output by 1 V in under 20 nanoseconds.
The MCVR also uses an algorithm to recognize parts of the processor that are not in use and cuts power to them, saving energy. Kim says it results in a longer battery life (or, in the case of stationary data centers, lower energy bills), while providing the same performance.
The on-chip design means that the power supply can be managed not just for each processor chip, but for each individual core on the chip. The short distance that signals then have to travel between the voltage regulator and the cores allows power scaling to happen quickly, in a matter of nanoseconds rather than microseconds, further improving efficiency.
The multi-core voltage regulator responds almost instantaneously to changes in power demand from each core of the processor. As a result, the power supply matches the demand more closely, conserving energy. Image courtesy of Wonyoung Kim, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Kim has obtained a provisional patent for the MCVR with his Ph.D. co-advisers at SEAS, Gu-Yeon Wei, Gordon McKay Professor of Electrical Engineering, and David Brooks, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, who are coauthors on the paper he presented this week.
Although Kim estimates that the greatest demand for the MCVR right now could be in the market for mobile phones, the device would also have applications in other computing scenarios. Used in laptops, the MCVR might reduce the heat output of the processor, which is currently one barrier to making slimmer notebooks. In stationary scenarios, the rising cost of powering servers of ever-increasing speed and capacity could be reduced.
"This is a plug-and-play device in the sense that it can be easily incorporated into the design of processor chips," says Kim. "Including the MCVR on a chip would add about 10 percent to the manufacturing cost, but with the potential for 20 percent or more in power savings."
This is a die micrograph of the fully integrated DC-DC converter chip.
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
