Anasim’s intellectual property portfolio spans power management, high-speed signaling, and active packaging — built over two decades of analog and mixed-signal design.
Active Noise Regulation is a non-disruptive System-in-Package technology that addresses power integrity for high-performance ULSI systems and components such as microprocessors, SoCs, SiPs, and multi-chip assemblies. High-performance, high-power components undergo very frequent transitions in operational state through different power states to minimize power consumption while maintaining required performance. These state transitions may induce very sudden, large swings in power supply current requirement, exciting the power delivery network into resonance while simultaneously depleting local charge stored in the vicinity of the high-bandwidth load.
ANR devices address this problem through rapid, controlled, and local supply of charge into the load component power grid. The ANR is associated with a dedicated reservoir capacitor fed by a high-voltage supply line, providing a reservoir of charge many times greater than charge stored at the load component’s operating voltage. When the ANR detects a substantial voltage droop event, it initiates compensating flow of charge from the reservoir into the load power grid.
System-level simulation has shown that ANR can reduce low-frequency system-level transients substantially. The natural evolution of ANR devices is into local voltage regulators (LVRs) that provide extremely high-bandwidth, on-package, high-efficiency power conversion using the parasitic elements of package capacitors and supply pathways.
ComLSI’s Power Management intellectual property includes patented energy-efficient RPTS technology. Capable of simultaneous gate-swing and ON-resistance reduction, this power transistor bias and drive technique reduces switching and conduction losses in DC-to-DC converters and related applications. It is believed to be the only circuit solution applicable to significantly reducing power transistor losses in switched converters.
The SCDL Driver is a fully differential version of the standard open-drain driver indicated in the DVI 1.0 specification. Its key characteristic is a source-coupled drive that transfers energy from the pre-driver into the output interconnect through designed capacitive coupling. This minimizes transitional energy and improves output edge rates substantially. Source termination is intrinsic in the SCDL driver, proactively meeting the HDMI 1.3 Specification requirement without loss of signal amplitude.
ComLSI’s SCDL drivers eliminate undershoots and overshoots in transmitted fully differential signal, enabling transmit equalization where desired. An SCDL receiver employs matched analog source-followers at its input, stepping the input signal down from high voltage levels to levels appropriate for high-gain, low-voltage circuits. ComLSI’s SCDL technology has been implemented as transceivers in 180nm logic CMOS.
ComLSI’s high-speed differential signaling technologies include patented true-differential CBDS Drivers. Capable of either high voltage swings through high current output, or low power through the use of the entire supply current drawn into signal development, this driver is LVDS compatible. Applications include low-power drivers for DVI 1.0 and above links, HDMI 1.3 drivers and receivers, and low-power transceivers for portable devices.
In Active VLSI Packaging, package capacitors are combined with land-side mounted ANR devices. These structures locate the high-voltage reservoir capacitor and control circuitry within a distance of a package substrate thickness of the processor or SoC die. The ANR device makes use of the large energy capacity of these reservoirs to pro-actively restore charge to the on-die power grid, allowing active control of dynamic power noise with minimal power consumption.
ComLSI’s SAPI (Stacked Active Passive Integration) is a Package-on-Package technology combining active circuits, passive elements, and packaging. The trend towards smaller, higher-performance devices with greater functionality compels integration techniques such as PoP. SAPI takes PoP and System-in-Package techniques further by providing symbiotic functionality within the package that amplifies the utility and performance of a component or system while minimizing substrate real-estate use and cost.
Anasim/ComLSI holds 40+ US and international patents. Selected patent numbers:
Additional patents and applications not listed. See Publications for related papers and presentations.