*********************************
There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
*********************************
THE SCHOOL OF MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Under the provisions of the regulations for the degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
on Monday, June 13, 2022
10:00 AM
in Pettit Microelectronics Building - 102B
and via
Zoom Videoconferencing
https://gatech.zoom.us/j/97187855358?pwd=eWNmY1NCQ1V3cTRQKytXeHo5cTArQT09
Meeting ID: 971 8785 5358
Passcode: 310123
will be held the
DISSERTATION PROPOSAL DEFENSE
for
Prahalad Murali
"Materials and Processes for High Conversion Ratio High Efficiency Package Embedded Inductors for Integrated Voltage Regulators"
Committee Members:
Prof. Madhavan Swaminathan, Co-advisor, ECE/MSE
Prof. Mark D. Losego, Co-advisor, MSE
Himani Sharma, PhD, MSE
Mohanalingam Kathaperumal, PhD, ECE
Prof. Maryam Saeedifard, ECE
Abstract:
With data centers taking the center stage of most of our daily computing needs, it is necessary to take a close look at how we can improve their efficiency. According to DW and IEA statistics, data centres take up anywhere between 200-250 TWh of electricity a year which is more than some of the countries. Power conversion and cooling take up a major chunk of the electricity needs of the data center. The focus of this research is going to be on the inductors that form a part of the buck converter circuit which converts high input DC voltages to low DC voltages (1 V) required to power the System-on Chip (SoC). The losses in a buck converter circuit stem from the conduction losses of the MOSFET and inductor, the inductor’s AC magnetic losses and the MOSFET dynamic or switching loss. The inductor being part of a bigger system must be able to match the frequency at which the MOSFET’s maximum efficiency is at. For integrated voltage regulators, the inductors must have a small footprint while maintaining the high inductance density, high current density, and low losses (DC and AC). To improve the inductor efficiency, the magnetic core and the design must be taken into consideration. High permeability and low loss materials are hard to find. Also, novel inductor designs with currently available materials can’t meet the target metrics. It is also important to be able to fabricate these designs in a manner that they can be integrated into the package substrate.
Previous work has shown that flake based metal polymer composites achieve high permeability thereby high inductance density at the cost of low current handling whereas low permeability materials achieve high current densities with low inductances. The work proposes to achieve the following objectives:
1. Study the effect of a sphere-flake oxide coated metal fillers in a metal polymer composite magnetic core on the power loss metric (Racx)
2. Fabrication and characterization of novel inductor designs using a semi-additive patterning (SAP) process
3. Design and demonstration of glass substrate embedded inductors
