Re: [SI-LIST] : Decoupling capacitor selection & placemen

Paul Galloway ([email protected])
Fri, 7 Nov 1997 12:49:27 -0500

Hi,

Haven't we concluded that the only reason some existing chips are
functioning is due to the inherent on-die capacitance?

As a reference you may want to check the following:

"Circuit Implementation of a 300 MHz 64-bit Second-Generation CMOS Alpha
CPU", Digital Technical Journal, vol. 7 No.1, 1995.

which refers to use of 160nf on chip decoupling capacitance.

There were several generations of chips prior that also incorporated
on-die capacitance. As D.C. relates, using gate capacitance to build
these isn't as much of an issue as is changing the design process and
methodology to accomodate.

Paul

On Nov 7, 9:36am, D. C. Sessions wrote:
> Subject: Re: [SI-LIST] : Decoupling capacitor selection & placemen
> Mellitz, Richard wrote:
> >
> > D.C.
> >
> > Are you your own straight man? :-)
>
> No -- SI people are all loopy.
>
> > Sorry, ...couldn't resist.
>
> Lines like that should be deposited -- they leave people sputtering.
>
> > Anyhow,
> > that sounds great! How much C are you going to add and where on the
> > chips do you plan put it? The I/O ring, core, ...?
>
> Currently there's a capital appropriation going through for hammers.
> After that, it's whatever fits wherever we can get it. It's really
> a methodology issue, but the fact remains that onchip capacitance
> has far higher Q and less distribution parasitics than anything
> off-chip can approach.
>
> Here's a general idea:
>
> For a synchronous design, CMOS power dissipation is pretty much
> a capacitive-discharge effect. A device that burns 2400 mW at
> 3.6v and 100 MHz has an effective load capacitance of about 2000 pF
> mostly right after clock events. If we go with a 10% supply dip,
> that means bypass of 20 nF; a gate capacitance of 6-7 mF/sq.M gives
> an area of about 3 square millimeters. NOT small, but not huge
> either; it's about 10% of a typical IC.
>
> Keep in mind that quiescent CMOS gates provide distributed
> capacitance via their input capacitance, both by coupling to
> the supply rails of the devices driving them and by the series
> capacitance of their own input transistors. (This isn't anything
> like 10% of the die area, but it is enough to make a difference
> and has the nice characteristic of random interconnect.)
>
> The challenge to people like me is to change our methodology
> to at least take advantage of the available floorspace to add
> caps without pushing out development time. It's frustrating
> partly because in deep submicron designs the routing takes up
> so much of the die that there is quite a bit of silicon doing
> nothing but supporting oxide.
>
> > >The other possibility is that people like me(!)
> > >will incorporate termination onchip (as the Creator intended it) to
> > >eliminate stubs and add capacitors onchip (on the RIHGT side of
> > >bondwire inductance.)
>
> --
> D. C. Sessions
> [email protected]
>-- End of excerpt from D. C. Sessions