William J. Lambert

FIVR — Fully integrated voltage regulators on 4th generation Intel® Core™ SoCs

Intels® 4th generation Core™ microprocessors are powered by Fully Integrated Voltage Regulators (FIVR). These 140 MHz multi-phase buck regulators are integrated into the 22nm processor die, and feature up to 80 MHz unity gain bandwidth, non-magnetic package trace inductors and on-die MIM capacitors. FIVRs are highly configurable, allowing them to power a wide range of products from 3W fanless tablets to 300W servers. FIVR helps enable 50% or more battery life improvements for mobile products and more than doubles the peak power available for burst workloads.

Package Inductors for Intel Fully Integrated Voltage Regulators

Intel fourth-generation and fifth-generation Core microprocessors are powered by high-frequency integrated switching voltage regulators. The inductors required to implement these regulators are constructed using the routing layers of conventional organic flip chip packaging. This paper provides an overview of the construction of these inductors including representative results from production packages. Measured inductors reported in this paper span from 1 to 6.7 nH under 2.4 mm2 and achieve Q of up to 24 at 140 MHz (the switching frequency).

Package embedded inductors for integrated voltage regulators

Intel® 4th generation Core™ microprocessors are powered by high frequency integrated switching voltage regulators. The inductors required to implement these regulators were constructed using the routing layers of conventional organic flip chip packaging. This paper provides an overview of the simulation and measurement of these embedded inductors including representative results from production packages.