Characterization of current signatures for microprocessors

This work presents current signatures for a set of test cases running on a general purpose server IBM POWER5/spl trade/ processor under the control of IBM's AIX/spl trade/ operating system. This is part of activities focused on understanding how to optimize the power delivery infrastructure with respect to total system cost. Specifically a better understanding of the current signatures of processors coupled with better understanding of how to design the decoupling infrastructure and in what ways the processor circuits are susceptible to power domain voltage noise is expected to help us accomplish this.