外媒：数字电源在应对摩尔定律挑战中至关重要

数字电源在应对摩尔定律挑战中至关重要0' title='外媒：数字电源在应对摩尔定律挑战中至关重要0' />

元器件交易网讯 11月8日消息，据外媒EETasia分析，摩尔定律几年后就将走到尽头，届时芯片制造将会面临诸多障碍，全面采用数字电源将变得至关重要。

摩尔定律即将走到尽头。有报道称距摩尔定律终结看起来似乎还有几十年，现在仅剩几年的光景了。摩尔定律称晶体管密度每两年翻一倍。

台积电最小芯片工艺制程为20nm，称其“相比28nm技术，密度提升1.9倍，速度提升30%，而能耗降低25%”。英特尔称也拥有同样的20nm的制造工艺。

节点收缩到这个程度造成了许多障碍。下面我们来看看数字电源在应对摩尔定律带来的挑战时扮演的角色，推动它在很多应用领域从推荐技术变成必须技术。

在过去的十年中，伴随其重要性的提升，数字电源应用的数量也在稳步增长。当数字电源全面应用时，将允许设计师动态地调整电源轨来迅速提升开发周期，并能通过实时接受遥测数据来帮助设计师们准确地分析电源设备的情况。

通常，这需要一个完整的、同时涉及硬件及软件的系统的解决方案。更换数字电源将会为公司带来难以置信的好处和独特的优势，但是大多数公司同样拥有实施系统管理的设备和资源。

如果没有合适的信息及合作者来一同工作，全面应用数字电源未必是一个简单的任务。因此，全面推进数字电源系统要比市场预期慢一些。

虽然大多数数字电源厂商试图推动全面的系统解决方案，事实上仅仅更换一个插口都会创造难以形容的价值。大量芯片对功率都有极端的要求，需要在1V的情况下获得50安、70安、甚至100安的电流来处理较大的电压瞬变以及容差极小的输出。

数字降压点负载，像可兼容电源管理总线的NDM2Z系列DC/DC转换模块包含了电源管理特性，比如电压排序、电压裕度、电压跟踪等，帮助设计师动态的优化其电源系统。

通常情况下，这些功率需求由处理器来处理，但是现在这项工作转移到其他主流和专用IC上。对于高集成数字降压点负载(POL)，这些都是完美的方案。

“推荐、强烈推荐、必需”这样的字眼不断出现在数据表和市场营销材料上。但不幸的是没有任何一个IEEE（工程协会）定义这些字眼，用户还要自己理解这些厂商的意思。

最重要的是，没人愿意在技术文档中使用这个词语。因为它关乎一部分解决方案并且可能被对手利用来与其竞争。例如，在以上两个场景中，将数字电源推荐给功率需求极端的系统或芯片可能会被考虑。这么做更为简单直接，不是么？

以下为原文：

Digital power vital as chip architectures become smaller

Moore's Law is set to come to an end. The end of Moore's Law, where transistor density doubles approximately every two years, has been reportedly just a few years away for what seems like decades now.

TSMC's smallest architecture is a 20nm process, which it claims has "30 per cent higher speed, 1.9 times the density, or 25 per cent less power [compared with] its 28nm technology." Intel is claiming similar process geometries.0

Shrinking nodes to this level creates several difficulties. Here we look at the role digital power is playing to help address some of the challenges brought on by Moore's Law, moving it from a recommended to a required technology in many new applications.

The importance and number of implementations of digital power have been growing steadily over the past decade and, when fully implemented, it allows users to dynamically adjust power rails to improve efficiency, quickly make changes during development to shorten design cycles, and receive real-time telemetry to let users accurately analyse their power infrastructure.

Typically, this has entailed a complete system level solution involving both hardware and software implementation. The companies that have made the transition to digital power have seen incredible benefits and realised a distinct advantage, but the majority of these companies have also had the infrastructure and resources to manage an implementation at the system level.

This type of implementation is not necessarily a trivial task without having proper information and partners to work with. Thus, the move to a fully-digital power system has been slower than the market had hoped.

While the majority of the vendors in the digital power market have tried to drive the value of a complete system solution, the fact is that it can also provide incredible value at just a single socket level. There are now numerous chips with extreme power requirements of 50A, 70A, or even over 100A at 1V, capable of handling significant transients and very tight tolerances on output.

Typically these challenging power requirements have resided at the processor, but they are now migrating to other mainstream and application-specific ICs. These are perfect scenarios for a highly integrated digital POL.

Digital POLs such as the PMBus-compatible NDM2Z series DC/DC converter module incorporate power management features like voltage sequencing, voltage margining, and voltage tracking to help designers dynamically optimise their power systems.

"Recommended, highly recommended and required' are terms that are consistently thrown about in datasheets and marketing materials at all levels. Unfortunately, there isn't an IEEE definition for these terms, and it is up to the user to interpret the vendor's meaning.[!--empirenews.page--]

For the most part, no one likes to use the word required in their technical documentation because that locks it in as part of the solution and could potentially be used against them by their competitors. For example, in the two scenarios above, it could be considered that digital power is recommended for a system and highly recommended for those chips with the extreme power requirements. Simple and straightforward, right?