A Monolithic, 10.5 W/mm2, 600 MHz Top-Metal and C4 Planar Spiral Inductor-Based Integrated Buck Voltage Regulator on 16 nm Class

A monolithic buck voltage regulator (VR) built with top-metal and industry-first C4 planar spiral inductors demonstrates 2.5 times higher power density than prior art, providing efficient alternative to low-dropout linear regulators (LDOs) powering disaggregated digital, IO and PHY IPs. The 1.1 V single-stack power stage, DPWM delay-line, self-triggered windowed-flash ADC, and fully digital and reconfigurable controller are designed for high frequency, delivering 10.5 W/mm2 at 600 MHz, with 0.35–0.85 V operating range and 18%–25% improvement in efficiency over an ideal LDO.