SBIR Phase II: Integrated Voltage Regulators for Small Footprint, Efficient Power Delivery in Mobile Electronics

该小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目旨在开发比现有解决方案小10倍的集成电压调节器(IVR)。电源管理IC(PMIC)是移动电子设备中的芯片，它从电池向不同的芯片(例如处理器、内存)提供电力。现有的PMIC使用分立的板级电感来高效地传输电能，但问题是电感在电路板上占据了很大的面积。移动设备制造商付出了巨大的努力来减少平方毫米的电路板面积，为新功能的额外半导体芯片腾出空间。使用IVR，移动设备可以拥有额外的空间，这些空间过去专门用于PMIC的笨重离散组件，并利用这些空间包含新芯片以实现新功能，或者增加电池大小以延长电池寿命。这个项目将首先在半导体测试芯片原型上工作，以证明IVR的想法。该项目的目标是通过取代现有的PMIC，在大容量智能手机和平板电脑中提供IVR。该项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力在于节省移动设备的主板面积和处理器功耗，这对移动设备的持续创新至关重要。移动设备制造商总是寻求在他们的下一代产品中添加新功能，以使自己与竞争对手区分开来。新功能通常需要额外的芯片，但问题是，移动设备中根本没有为新芯片留出的区域。解决这一问题的一种方法是缩小电池，为芯片留出更多空间，但这是不可接受的，因为它会缩短电池寿命。使用IVR，手机和平板电脑的主板上将有额外的空间，以包括微型投影仪和超精确的运动传感等新功能。该项目的目标是在快速增长的智能手机和平板电脑市场产生巨大影响，年出货量分别为10亿和2.5亿台。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project seeks to develop integrated voltage regulators (IVR) that are 10 times smaller than existing solutions. Power management ICs (PMICs) are chips in mobile electronic devices that deliver power from the battery to different chips (e.g., processor, memory). Existing PMICs use discrete board-level inductors to efficiently deliver power, but the problem is that inductors occupy a large area on the board. This is especially problematic in space-constrained mobile electronic devices. Mobile device manufacturers put tremendous amounts of effort to reduce square millimeters of board area to make room for additional semiconductor chips for new features. Using IVRs, mobile devices can have extra space that used to be dedicated to bulky discrete components for PMICs, and use that space to either include new chips for new features or increase the battery size for longer battery life. This project will first work on semiconductor test-chip prototypes that prove the idea of IVRs. Then, the next step is to demonstrate it in commercial mobile electronic devices. The goal of the project is to ship IVRs in high-volume smartphones and tablets by replacing existing PMICs.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is in saving board area and processor power consumption in mobile devices, which is crucial for continued innovation in mobile devices. Mobile device manufacturers always look for new features to add in their next generation products to differentiate themselves from competitors. New features often need additional chips, but the problem is that there is simply no area left in the mobile devices for new chips. One way to solve this is to shrink the battery and leave more room for chips, but this is unacceptable since it reduces battery life. The only way to keep introducing new features and chips is to reduce the existing board area. IVRs solve this burning need of mobile devices. Using IVRs, phones and tablets will have extra space in their board to include new features such as micro-projectors and ultra-accurate motion sensing. The technology developed from this project is essential in allowing mobile devices to keep improving with new features. This project aims to have a big impact in the fast-growing smartphone and tablet market with 1 billion and 250 million in annual shipments, respectively.