CAREER: Power Management Solutions for Systems-on-Chip

职业：片上系统电源管理解决方案

• 批准号: 2236745
• 负责人: Mohammad Alhawari
• 金额: $ 51.79万
• 依托单位: Wayne State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-01 至 2028-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2236745&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Power; Management; Solutions; Systems

Advancements in semiconductor technologies and systems-on-chip have enabled efficient and intelligent systems in automotive, edge computing, and internet-of-things. A power management unit is a mainstream circuit that manages the power flow in systems-on-chip using various power converters, including switched-capacitor circuits. With the increasing demands for higher performance and multifunctional systems-on-chip, designing efficient, compact, and integrated power management unit faces many challenges. First, an accurate and fast behavioral model for switched-capacitor circuits is required to assist designers in optimizing various parameters at the early design stages. Second, there is a critical need for better switched-capacitor circuits that can achieve both high power and area efficiency. Third, efficient control circuits are required to support switched-capacitor circuits and other power converters to enhance power efficiency. The broad goal of this CAREER proposal is to pursue innovative research directions in mixed-signal design at modeling, converter architecture, and circuit levels to address these challenges and pave the way for ground-breaking innovations in modeling and circuit implementations. This CAREER proposal will significantly impact the research front by advancing the knowledge in power management design and providing the research community with new models and circuits that can be applied to various applications. The educational aspects include filling the gap in the electrical and computer engineering curriculum related to mixed-signal circuit design. The outreach activities include developing a summer course for K-12 students through collaboration with the K-12 Educational Outreach Office at Wayne State University. Also, the activities will include collaborating with industry to train students on chip design tools and provide them with timely and relevant skill sets.This CAREER explores new design directions at the modeling, converter architecture, and control circuit levels toward efficient power management units. At the modeling level, a new resistor-network behavioral model is proposed to describe the electrical characteristics of generic switched-capacitor circuits over the entire operating frequency range, unlocking new possibilities to optimize switched-capacitor circuits quickly and accurately. At the architecture level, a new stacked charge pump is proposed that provides a high voltage conversion ratio and superior area efficiency by reducing the number of pump capacitors while maintaining high power efficiency. At the circuit level, a new circuit family is proposed that can be used to design power and area-efficient control circuits for various power converters, including multi-stable analog memory for maximum power transfer, a low-power clock generator that enables frequency and pulse width modulation and zero current switching circuits.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

半导体技术和片上系统的进步使得汽车、边缘计算和物联网领域实现了高效、智能的系统。电源管理单元是一种主流电路，它使用各种电源转换器（包括开关电容器电路）来管理片上系统中的功率流。随着对更高性能和多功能片上系统的需求不断增加，设计高效、紧凑和集成的电源管理单元面临着许多挑战。首先，需要一个准确、快速的开关电容器电路行为模型，以帮助设计人员在早期设计阶段优化各种参数。其次，迫切需要更好的开关电容器电路，以实现高功率和面积效率。第三，需要高效的控制电路来支持开关电容器电路和其他电源转换器，以提高电源效率。该职业提案的总体目标是在建模、转换器架构和电路级别追求混合信号设计的创新研究方向，以应对这些挑战，并为建模和电路实现方面的突破性创新铺平道路。该职业提案将通过推进电源管理设计知识并为研究界提供可应用于各种应用的新模型和电路来对研究前沿产生重大影响。教育方面包括填补与混合信号电路设计相关的电气和计算机工程课程的空白。外展活动包括与韦恩州立大学 K-12 教育外展办公室合作，为 K-12 学生开发暑期课程。此外，这些活动还将包括与业界合作，对学生进行芯片设计工具方面的培训，并为他们提供及时的相关技能。该职业探索建模、转换器架构和控制电路层面的新设计方向，以实现高效的电源管理单元。在建模层面，提出了一种新的电阻网络行为模型来描述通用开关电容器电路在整个工作频率范围内的电气特性，从而开启了快速准确地优化开关电容器电路的新可能性。在架构层面，提出了一种新的堆叠电荷泵，通过减少泵电容器的数量，同时保持高功率效率，提供高电压转换比和卓越的面积效率。在电路层面，提出了一个新的电路系列，可用于为各种电源转换器设计功率和面积高效的控制电路，包括用于最大功率传输的多稳态模拟存储器、支持频率和脉宽调制的低功耗时钟发生器以及零电流开关电路。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。