In-Situ Measurement of Supply-Noise Maps With Millivolt Accuracy and Nanosecond-Order Time Resolution

Author

Kanno, Yusuke ; Kondoh, Yuki ; Irita, Takahiro ; Hirose, Kenji ; Mori, Ryo ; Yasu, Yoshihiko ; Komatsu, Shigenobu ; Mizuno, Hiroyuki

Author_Institution

Central Res. Lab., Hitachi, Ltd, Tokyo

Volume

42

Issue

4

fYear

2007

fDate

4/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

784

Lastpage

789

Abstract

An in situ measurement scheme for generating supply-noise maps, which can be conducted while running applications in product-level LSIs, was developed. The design of the on-chip voltage sampling probe is based on a simple ring oscillator, which converts local supply difference between VDD and V_SS to oscillation-frequency deviation. High measurement accuracy is achieved by off-chip digital signal processing and calibration. This scheme was used to successfully measure 69-mV local supply noise with 5-ns time resolution in a 3G-cellular-phone processor. It will thus help in designing power-supply networks and in visually verifying the quality of a power supply

Keywords

electric noise measurement; integrated circuit measurement; integrated circuit noise; microprocessor chips; power supply circuits; 3G cellular phone processor; 5 ns; 69 mV; in-situ measurement; millivolt accuracy; nanosecond-order time resolution; on-chip voltage sampling probe; power integrity; power supply quality; power-supply networks; power-supply-noise map; ring oscillator; system-on-chip; Calibration; Digital signal processing; Noise measurement; Power supplies; Probes; Ring oscillators; Signal resolution; Signal sampling; Time measurement; Voltage-controlled oscillators; In situ measurement; power integrity; power-supply-noise map; ring oscillator; system-on-chip (SoC);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSSC.2007.891662

Filename

4140590