Advanced Multiphasing: Pushing the Envelope of Fully Integrated Power Conversion

This paper discusses the main factors that have sparked the interest in monolithic power conversion and why switched-capacitor converters in particular make an excellent candidate. For this type of converter, the large parasitic coupling to the substrate, the limited capacitor density on-chip, and the inherent constrained conversion ratio range, do pose a challenge. With Advanced Multiphasing, multiple out-of-phase converter cores interact with each other to arrive at a switched-capacitor converter with more than the typical two phases that in the end has more capabilities and/or better performance. Several Advanced Multiphasing techniques are discussed that focus on both high- and low-power densities, and even allow for a new type of switched-capacitor converter which has a continuously-scalable conversion ratio. Measurement results demonstrate the working principles of these techniques and show the great potential of Advanced Multiphasing in pushing the limits of fully integrated power conversion further.