News & Analysis
DesignCon's 5 Toughest Tech Questions
Rick Merritt
12/28/2012 12:40 PM EST
What’s at the bleeding edge of power integrity?

The mega Internet data center is the proving ground for power integrity questions these days. The massive server farms must be located next to power substations to get the juice they need, so every joule counts. Just how the power gets passed around efficiently is a high art.
Google engineers return to DesignCon this year to share some of their secrets of power management on a grand scale. Their paper talks about driving server processors at higher than the recommended 12V to get new levels of power efficiency.
In its turn, Intel will give a paper on power analysis tools useful for a wide range of designs from SoCs to servers. When the event is over, I expect to have a better handle on the state of the art in power integrity.

Google engineers return to DesignCon this year to share some of their secrets of power management on a grand scale. Their paper talks about driving server processors at higher than the recommended 12V to get new levels of power efficiency.
In its turn, Intel will give a paper on power analysis tools useful for a wide range of designs from SoCs to servers. When the event is over, I expect to have a better handle on the state of the art in power integrity.
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rick.merritt
12/29/2012 4:43 PM EST
What are your burning questions in high-speed design? Join the conversation.
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docdivakar
1/1/2013 5:12 PM EST
Rick, I am looking forward to your next five... I would be curious to know what KAIST is going to present on 3D Stacks (haven't seen much from them on this).
Regarding 400Gbits systems, it could herald the beginning of the end of Copper chassis-to-chassis interconnects as we know it; for sure it will restrict the application to within cabinet interconnects. But there are still challenges on motherboards -need better dielectric materials which will drive up the costs, not to mention power and signal routing and signal integrity.
MP Divakar
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rick.merritt
1/2/2013 4:40 PM EST
KAIST has two 3-D papers at the event. One on TSV failures and the other looks more interesting on 2.5-D GPU and memory.
See http://www.designcon.com/santaclara/conference/tracks.php?session_id=239
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docdivakar
1/3/2013 12:34 PM EST
Rick, thanks for the link. I am caught up with emails from the holiday break and found the work of Prof. Joungho Kim of KAIST in Phil Garou's article:
http://www.electroiq.com/blogs/insights_from_leading_edge/2012/12/iftle-126-2012-gatech-interposer-conference-part-2.html?cmpid=EnlAPDecember192012
The link above describes some work of KAIST on glass interposers vs. Silicon. Interesting thing is that it is also the first instance where I see optical wave guides in the context of 2.5D/3D stacking.
MP Divakar
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martin.rowe
1/2/2013 11:14 AM EST
Be sure to vote on "Are You Attending DesignCon 2013?" at DesignConCommunity.com.
We're always looking for new bloggers at DesignCon Community. If interested, send e-mail to
editors@designconcommunity.com.
See you in Santa Clara.
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nannasin28
1/21/2013 3:28 AM EST
there are still challenges on motherboards -need better dielectric materials. http://www.hqew.net
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