Design considerations for low-voltage on-board DC/DC modules for next generations of data processing circuits

By reducing the power supply voltage, a higher speed, lower power consumption, and higher integration density of data processing IC's can be achieved, Presently, a variety of IC's operating from 3.3 V are available, Next generations of IC's are expected to work even with lower voltages, i.e., in the 1-3 V range, to further enhance their speed-power performance, At the same time, during transients these new generations of data IC's will present very dynamic loads with high current slew rates, As a result, they will require point-of-load power supplies in order to minimize the effects of the interconnection parasitics, These onboard power supplies will be derived from the existing voltages available in the system (usually 5 or 12 V), and will be required to have high power densities, high efficiencies, and good transient performance, This paper presents design considerations for these on-board power supplies and discusses their performance limits imposed by various circuit and system parasitics.