Supplying power to high performance integrated circuits has become a challenging task. The system supplying power to an integrated circuit greatly affects the performance, size, and cost characteristics of the overall electronic system. This system is comprised of interconnect networks with decoupling capacitors on a printed circuit board, an integrated circuit package, and a circuit die. The entire system is henceforth referred to as the power distribution system. The design of power distribution systems is described in this chapter. The focus of the discussion is the overall structure and interaction among the various parts of the system. The impedance characteristics and design of on-chip power distribution networks, the most complex part of the power distribution system, are discussed in greater detail in the following chapters.

The chapter is organized as follows. A typical power distribution system for a high power, high speed integrated circuit is described in Section 5.1. A circuit model of a power distribution system is presented in Section 5.2. The output impedance characteristics are discussed in Section 5.3. The effect of a shunting capacitance on the impedance of a power distribution system is considered in Section 5.4. The hierarchical placement of capacitors to satisfy target impedance requirements is described in Section 5.5. Design strategies to control the resonant effects in power distribution networks are discussed in Section 5.6. A purely resistive impedance characteristic of power distribution systems can be achieved using an impedance compensation technique, as described in Section 5.7. A case study of a power...