A cooperative power management with auto-configured multi-phase control and real-time power module swap

For high power efficiency and better signal integrity, distributed power modules with sophisticated management control are popular in modern SiP, SoC and 3D-IC designs. To dynamically and extensively utilize the idle and redundant power modules, this work applies a cooperative concept for on-chip power management. Current control is used to balance the load for distributed power modules. An estimator with digital engine executes intelligent actions such as real-time adding/dropping power modules depending on load and thermal conditions. It automatically configures the power system with proper phase interleaving. In the prototype chip using 0.35-μm CMOS, four modules are connected as a cooperative power network to convert 2.7V to 4.3V input to 1.8V output voltage with less than 25mV ripple. PFM achieves 76% efficiency under 20mA load. 88% power efficiency in PWM with four cooperative modules is 8.5% higher than that with single module under 300mA load.