Embedded CMOS distributed voltage regulator for large core loads

This paper presents a new distributed linear voltage regulator designed to supply large CMOS cores at multiple points. The new embedded regulator has been designed with distributed power devices in order to reduce the supply routing constraints of large integrated cores. The regulator has been optimised to regulate a very wide load range with large current transients without requiring large filter capacitors nor compromising its low quiescent current (150/spl mu/A). The regulator was fabricated in a 0.25/spl mu/m standard digital CMOS process, occupies 0.15mm/sup 2/ and can supply 400mA of load at 2.5V from a 3.3V supply. Four supply points are used. Furthermore, a very compact chip area is achieved due to a modified Miller compensation network that guarantees stability at a fraction of the chip area of a conventional compensation networks. This circuit is particularly suited for digital processing cores as well as other processing cores requiring hundreds of milliamp of current.