Overcoming power management IP challenges

In the past power management on a SoC was often seen as a relatively straightforward job. A chip design engineer would place a couple of voltage regulators on the edge of the die and call it a day. With modern chips, power management sits right at the core of the architecture. Between scaling down to advanced nodes and pushing for maximum performance-per-watt, managing power has become one of the most complex, high-risk parts of silicon design.

Here is what engineering teams are actually dealing with:

The multi-domain balancing act

To squeeze every drop of energy efficiency out of a modern chip, designers split the die into dozens of independent power domains. On paper, combining Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS), power gating and state retention may seem like a great strategy. But in practice, it can be a timing nightmare.

When you have multiple domains switching on and off, power sequencing is critical. A tiny timing mismatch during startup or shutdown can lead to excessive inrush currents, latch-up or corrupted data. On top of that, deciding which registers need state retention flip-flops, without blowing the area and leakage budget, requires a constant balancing act.

The mixed-signal nightmare

Then there is the physical reality of silicon. As power density climbs, so do thermal hotspots and voltage drops. Large current spikes across dense power grids may cause severe IR drop and voltage droop, which can trigger timing failures across the chip.

Power management IP bridges the analog and digital worlds. Traditionally, it has been notoriously difficult to get analog components (such as LDOs, bandgap references and power-on-reset circuits) to co-simulate reliably alongside digital control logic across extreme Process, Voltage and Temperature (PVT) variations. Mixed-signal verification is renowned for being one of the longest, most painful phases of any SoC project.

The hard-macro trap

Finally, there is the issue of reusability. Most traditional analog power management IP is delivered as a rigid, hand-crafted "hard macro." That means if you decide to port your SoC design to a new process node, or even create a derivative chip with slightly different voltage requirements, you are essentially back to square one. You have to wait for a complete manual redesign and go through the entire mixed-signal verification process all over again. In an industry where time-to-market is everything, nobody wants that.

A better way forward

Overcoming these challenges requires a shift in thinking about analog IP. Instead of treating power management IP as a collection of bespoke, node-locked analog blocks, design teams need a modular, flexible approach that fits naturally into standard digital design flows.

That’s exactly why the Agile Analog team developed our unique Composa analog IP technology. This enables us to offer an extensive range of customizable, process-agnostic Power Management IP, including LDOs, Power-on-Reset circuits, Power-OK monitors, Bandgap references and Power Management Units (PMUs), that are fully verified and digitally wrapped.

By wrapping analog IP in digital logic, we eliminate the traditional mixed-signal integration headache. Our IP integrates seamlessly into standard EDA toolflows, and can be generated for almost any process node. The result is lower power consumption, drastically reduced integration time and a much faster path to tape-out.

Check out our blog post: Understanding why power management IP is so important.