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11/14/2012 AXO3A

Application Note
BCM7XXX
7XXX-AN100-R
5300 California Avenue Irvine, CA 92617 Phone: 949-926-5000 Fax: 949-926-5203 March 25, 2011
Adaptive Voltage Scaling for 40 nm Set-top Box Chips
11/14/2012 AXO3A
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or the EU. Any other trademarks or trade names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
Broadcom Corporation
5300 California Avenue
Irvine, CA 92617
2011 by Broadcom Corporation
All rights reserved
Printed in the U.S.A.
Revision History
Revision Date Change Description
7XXX-AN100-R 03/25/11 Initial release
11/14/2012 AXO3A
Table of Contents BCM7XXX Application Note
BROADCOM Adaptive Voltage Scaling for 40 nm Set-top Box Chips
March 25, 2011 7XXX-AN100-R Page 3

Table of Contents
Overview......................................................................................................................................................... 5
System Design Considerations with AVS .......................................................................................................5
AVS Components Design (R
dac
, C
top
, C
bot
)..................................................................................................... 6
Determination of C
top
and C
bot
................................................................................................................ 6
Determination of R
dac
.............................................................................................................................. 6
Non-AVS Designs......................................................................................................................................7
Other AVS Designs ................................................................................................................................... 7
11/14/2012 AXO3A
List of Figures BCM7XXX Application Note
BROADCOM Adaptive Voltage Scaling for 40 nm Set-top Box Chips
March 25, 2011 7XXX-AN100-R Page 4

List of Figures
Figure 1: AVS System Schematic ........................................................................................................................ 5
11/14/2012 AXO3A
Overview
BROADCOM Adaptive Voltage Scaling for 40 nm Set-top Box Chips
March 25, 2011 7XXX-AN100-R Page 5

BCM7XXX Application Note


Overview
Adaptive Voltage Scaling (AVS) is a way of reducing the power of the digital 1.0V supply while maintaining
performance under various process and operating conditions. The AVS implementation is achieved through the
use of a set of on-chip monitors that measure the effects of process, voltage, and temperature on circuit
speeds. The monitors are made up of a large set of ring oscillators of different circuit types that represent the
different standard cells in the design. The AVS software algorithm drives the external supply to set a voltage in
order to maintain a minimum speed on the monitors across process and temperature variations. This has the
effect of increasing the voltage for slow silicon and reducing the voltage for fast silicon, thereby reducing worst-
case power and maintaining near-nominal performance. The external supply voltage steering is achieved with
an on-chip DAC circuit that controls the feedback voltage of the external regulator.
At start-up, the AVS loop is open and the DAC output is tristated. The pre-AVS start-up voltage is determined
by the regulator design. This voltage will be sensed by the SoCs ADC circuit and used as the initial voltage when
the AVS loop is closed in software.
System Design Considerations with AVS
In an AVS system, the V
FB
pin of the switching regulator is driven by the SOCs 10-bit on-chip DAC driver. The
DAC driver modulates the feedback voltage depending on the speed of the silicon. A schematic of how the DAC
drives the external regulator is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: AVS System Schematic
Switching Regulator SoC
Regulator
Filter
V
AVS
V
DAC
R
bot
R
top
V
OUT
V
FB
C
bot
C
top
DAC
ADC
Internal VREF
R
dac
Key:
V
out
: Output of Switching Regulator
VAVS: VDDC Supply of the SOC
AVS design equations:
C
top
/C
bot
= R
bot
/R
top
.. C
top
= C
bot
* (R
bot
/R
top
)
4.3 < R
dac
/R
top
< 4.4
Regulators V
REF
range: 0.65V0.85V
11/14/2012 AXO3A
AVS Components Design (R
dac
, C
top
, C
bot
)
BROADCOM Adaptive Voltage Scaling for 40 nm Set-top Box Chips
March 25, 2011 7XXX-AN100-R Page 6

BCM7XXX Application Note


The AVS voltage at the SoC is governed by the following closed-loop equation that is derived from the simple
resistor network of Figure 1:
V
AVS
= 1 + R
top
/R
dac
* (V
REF
V
DAC
) (1)
Where, V
DAC
is the voltage at the output of the DAC, V
REF
is the switching regulators reference voltage, R
top
is
the upper resistor of the regulators resistor divider network, and R
dac
is an AVS resistor connecting the DAC
output to the regulators feedback pin (V
FB
). Since the 10b DAC is powered by a 2.5V source, its minimum
resolution is ~2.44 mV.
Note that R
top
, R
bot
, and the filter represent typical switching regulator designs whose values need to conform
to the switching regulators data sheets and requirements. There are no AVS restrictions on these components.
AVS Components Design (R
dac
, C
top
, C
bot
)
Determination of C
top
and C
bot
The DAC driver requires a minimum compensation capacitor of 200 nF at its output. To prevent potential over-
shoot issues at start-up, the compensation capacitor is required to be split into two capacitors, C
top
and C
bot
,
as shown in Figure 1 on page 5. The capacitors should be designed in such a way that the V
DAC
and V
FB
voltages
are equalized at start-up:
C
top
/C
bot
= R
bot
/R
top
(2)
(C
top
+ C
bot
) 0.2 F (3)
After choosing C
bot,
C
top
can easily be computed based on the regulators R
bot
and R
top
resistor divider network
while observing the total minimum cap requirement of the DAC driver (200 nF).
Determination of R
dac
From equation (1) above, the minimum V
AVS
voltage is achieved when V
DAC
is at its maximum level. Similarly,
the maximum V
AVS
voltage is achieved when the V
DAC
voltage is at its minimum level. The full V
AVS
range of
operation is from 0.81V to 1.05V. These voltage limits are based on the silicon process. The actual operating
V
AVS
voltage will likely be well within these limits. The full range of the V
DAC
voltage is from 0 to 2.5V, however,
to achieve good DAC code linearity, the V
DAC
voltage is best operated in a range from ~0.25 to ~2.25V. Also,
V
REF
is allowed to be in the range of 0.65V0.85V.
Note that equation (1) above can be rewritten and a R
dac
/R
top
ratio can be expressed as follows:
R
dac
/R
top
= (V
REF
V
DAC
) /( V
AVS
1) (4)
Constraining equation (4) by the V
AVS
, V
DAC
, and V
DAC
, and V
REF
ranges results in the following target value for
the R
dac
/R
top
ratio:
R
dac
/R
top
= 4.35 (5)
11/14/2012 AXO3A
AVS Components Design (R
dac
, C
top
, C
bot
)
BROADCOM Adaptive Voltage Scaling for 40 nm Set-top Box Chips
March 25, 2011 7XXX-AN100-R Page 7

BCM7XXX Application Note


Using equation (5), R
dac
can be easily computed based on a specific regulator design for R
top
. In practice, this
ratio is allowed to vary by 1%, which results in the following usable range:
4.3 < R
dac
/R
top
< 4.4 (6)
Non-AVS Designs
If a customer does not want to use AVS, then the DAC output can be left unconnected and the AVS components
(R
dac
, C
top
, and C
bot
) can be removed.
Other AVS Designs
On non-STB designs, the ADC/DAC I/O shown in Figure 1 on page 5 may be separated into two individual pins:
one for the ADC and the other for the DAC. This enables decoupling the AVS capacitors (C
top
and C
bot
) from the
switching regulators loop, and removes the restrictions defined in equation (2) above. Future STB products will
also adopt this two-pin solution.
11/14/2012 AXO3A

Phone: 949-926-5000
Fax: 949-926-5203
E-mail: info@broadcom.com
Web: www.broadcom.com
BROADCOM CORPORATION
5300 California Avenue
Irvine, CA 92617
2011 by BROADCOM CORPORATION. All rights reserved.
7XXX-AN100-R March 25, 2011
Broadcom Corporation reserves the right to make changes without further notice to any products
or data herein to improve reliability, function, or design.
Information furnished by Broadcom Corporation is believed to be accurate and reliable. However,
Broadcom Corporation does not assume any liability arising out of the application or use of this
information, nor the application or use of any product or circuit described herein, neither does it
convey any license under its patent rights nor the rights of others.
BCM7XXX Application Note

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