Very high frequency integrated voltage regulator for small portable devices

摘要

As today's small portable devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) becomes lighter, thinner, quicker, and smarter, the voltage regulator for the processor is expected to be efficient, miniaturized, integrated, and placed closer to the processor. In this paper, a concept of very high frequency (tens of MHz) 3D integrated voltage regulator for small portable devices is proposed. Both single-phase and 5-phase integrated inductor with NEC flake magnetic material is designed, fabricated and experimentally tested at 20MHz, featuring simple single-via winding structure, small size, ultra-low profile, ultra-low DCR, air-gap-free magnetic core, and lateral non-uniform flux.