Some of the PSMA Planning Meeting attendees

he Third International Workshop on Power Supply on Chip (PwrSoC2012) was held in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on the weekend of November 16th to 18th, just before Thanksgiving. This was the first time the workshop was held in the US, and the first time it was jointly sponsored by PSMA (Power Sources Manufacturers Association) and the IEEE Power Electronics Society (IEEE PELS). The workshop was an astounding success with almost 200 attendees representing more than 50 companies and 60 academic research groups from 20 different countries around the world. Participating companies included AMD, Anagensis, Analog Devices, Apple, Cree, Dialog Semiconductors, Enpirion, Ericsson, Fairchild, Freescale, GE, Global Foundries, Huawei, IBM, Infineon, Intel, LSI, Maxim, Microsemi, Nvidia, NXP, Panasonic, Qualcomm, ST Ericsson, ST Microelectronics, Sumida, Teledyne, Texas Instruments, TSMC, Volterra and Western Digital and Wurth Electronics. 

The workshop focussed on complete monolithic integration of power managment functions on-die (PwrSoC) and/or integration within an IC package (Power Supply in Package). These issues are becoming critical for system power management with current and emerging applications demanding ever greater granularity in voltage and control, form-factor reduction, increased efficiency and cost reduction.

At the workshop many of the presentations focused on the path to integration and form-factor reduction of dc-dc converters – that is, the difficulty of integrating energy handling passive components (i.e inductors and/or capacitors) together with conventional semiconductor processes. Strategies addressing circuit topologies and system approaches, as well as advanced technologies for the design and manufacture of these passives, were focal topics for the workshop. 

Originally, the brainchild of Dr. Cian Ó Mathúna, of Ireland’s Tyndall National Institute, PwrSoC2012 followed the very successful formula developed in the two previous workshops, hosted in Cork, Ireland in 2008 and 2010. These workshops were extraordinarily successful in attracting the leading industry and academic players, from around the world, to discuss the technical and commercial challenges and opportunities in bringing this emerging technology to the market.  As a result of this success, PSMA and IEEE PELS have  adopted and sponsored the workshop as the flagship event in this emerging space.

The General Chair for this year’s workshop, Prof. Seth Sanders, UC Berkeley, is one of the pioneers of Power Supply on Chip technology, using both inductive and switched capacitor platforms. In welcoming the opportunity to host the workshop in San Francisco, he commented “this workshop addressed the broader context of PwrSoC – as well as addressing the concept of board mounted dc-dc converters that replace linear regulators in terms of size and cost but with much higher efficiency. This years workshop has placed particular emphasis on the concept of granular power delivery for large system on chip platforms, such as microprocessors, microcontrollers and DSP chips, where multiple independent power rails enhance system performancee”.  

Dr.  Ó Mathúna, who, in 2007, led the first ever study on Power Suply on Chip (PSiP2PwrSoC), funded by PSMA, was Programme Chair for the San Francisco workshop. Dr. Ó Mathúna commented that “the presentations and discussions at PwrSoC2012, reflects the significant increase in state and commercial investment in this emerging area over the last 2 years. The workshop’s single-track focus, it’s informal ambience and the extensive networking opportunities is clearly facilitating the strategic discussions needed to articulate the technical challenges to be faced, the business opportunities that are emerging and the nature of the supply chain that needs to be in place to enable commercial success”. 

Dr. Ó Mathúna is scheduled to make a presentation at the APEC 2013 Plenary Session (IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference), on the technologies, challenges and opportunities presented and discussed at the workshop.

It is planned to make most of the workshop presentations available to the workshop attendees via the PwrSoC2012 website www.powersoc212.org  with public access available from April 2013.

Cian and Seth relaxing after a busy session

Provided by Cian Ó Mathúna,
Tyndall National Institute, Program Chair and
Seth R. Sanders, UC Berkeley, General Chair

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