An area efficient fully monolithic hybrid voltage regulator

A hybrid voltage regulator module for an on-chip DC-DC voltage converter is proposed in this paper. The circuit is appropriate for point-of-load voltage regulation due to an ultra area efficient architecture. The proposed voltage regulator is a hybrid combination of a switching DC-DC voltage converter and a low-dropout regulator exploiting active circuitry rather than bulky passive devices within the filter structure. The proposed circuit can supply over 100 mA current while generating 0.9 volts from a 1.2 input voltage, exhibiting a high current efficiency of greater than 99%. The on-chip area is 0.026 mm² which is 500 times smaller than a monolithic buck converter and four times smaller than an LDO. The proposed regulator provides a means for distributing multiple local power supplies across an integrated circuit while providing high current efficiency.