Reliable On-Chip Voltage Regulation for Sustainable and Compact IoT and Heterogeneous Computing Systems

Abstract

As an essential part of modern power delivery networks, on-chip voltage regulation consisting of multiple distributed voltage regulators provides the required power and voltage levels for localized load circuits. The harsh application environment of internet of things (IoT) and heterogeneous computing systems including, but not limited to, high temperature and large load current variations, can lead to significant and uneven performance degradations of on-chip voltage regulators due to aging. Investigating sustainable on-chip voltage regulation schemes considering the lifetime of different distributed voltage regulators becomes imperative. Furthermore, techniques to mitigate the aging induced voltage regulator degradations can consume the scarce on-chip area resource. In this work, a new reliable on-chip voltage regulation technique is explored to simultaneously mitigate the performance degradation and reduce the area cost of distributed on-chip voltage regulators to achieve sustainable and compact design and satisfy the needs of different IoT and heterogeneous computing systems considering the interactions among different regulators. A brief survey of reliable design challenges and potential solutions is also provided.