I am Wonyoung Kim, the PhD student who designed the chip mentioned in the article. I heard my work was mentioned in slashdot and wanted to clarify several points.
- Per-core voltage control is not an old thing. Intel and AMD both do per-core frequency control, but not voltage control. Multiple cores share a single voltage in their processors. There is an opportunity for additional power savings if the voltage is controlled at a per-core basis to track per-core frequency changes.
- My design is not a linear regulator. It is a "3-level" DC-DC converter that is a hybrid between the buck and switched-capacitor converters. It uses a flying capacitor to enable a much smaller inductor than the buck, which is important for on-die integration.
- This chip is not the first to present the "3-level" design, but the first 3-level converter to integrate everything (including inductors and capacitors) on a single die.
- Fully integrated DC-DC converters can enable nanosecond-scale, per-core voltage control while not adding board-level components.
Feel free to email me any questions if you are curious to hear more details.
Slashdot Mirror
I am Wonyoung Kim, the PhD student who designed the chip mentioned in the article. I heard my work was mentioned in slashdot and wanted to clarify several points. - Per-core voltage control is not an old thing. Intel and AMD both do per-core frequency control, but not voltage control. Multiple cores share a single voltage in their processors. There is an opportunity for additional power savings if the voltage is controlled at a per-core basis to track per-core frequency changes. - My design is not a linear regulator. It is a "3-level" DC-DC converter that is a hybrid between the buck and switched-capacitor converters. It uses a flying capacitor to enable a much smaller inductor than the buck, which is important for on-die integration. - This chip is not the first to present the "3-level" design, but the first 3-level converter to integrate everything (including inductors and capacitors) on a single die. - Fully integrated DC-DC converters can enable nanosecond-scale, per-core voltage control while not adding board-level components. Feel free to email me any questions if you are curious to hear more details.