{"schema_version":"1.0","canonical_url":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-9852989","patent":{"patent_number":"US-9852989","title":"Power grid of integrated circuit","assignee":null,"inventors":[],"filing_date":"2017-01-03T00:00:00.000Z","publication_date":"2017-12-26T00:00:00.000Z","cpc_codes":["H01L","H01L"],"num_claims":20,"abstract":"Power grids of an IC are provided. A power grid includes first power traces disposed in a first metal layer and parallel to a first direction, second power traces disposed in a second metal layer and parallel to a second direction that is perpendicular to the first direction, and third power traces disposed in the first metal layer parallel to the first direction. The first power traces arranged in the same straight line are separated from each other by a plurality of first gaps. The third power traces arranged in the same straight line are separated from each other by a plurality of second gaps. Each first gap is surrounded by the two adjacent third power traces. Each second gap is surrounded by the two adjacent first power traces. The first power traces are coupled to the third power traces via the second power traces."},"analysis":{"summary":"The Power Grid of Integrated Circuit (US-9852989) is a significant patent addressing critical challenges in power delivery within advanced integrated circuits (ICs). At its core, this innovation provides an optimized power grid architecture designed to enhance the performance, reliability, and energy efficiency of microprocessors and other complex chips.\n\n**Problem Being Solved:** Modern ICs, particularly those in high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, and mobile devices, suffer from issues like IR drop (voltage fluctuations), electromigration (material degradation due to current flow), and power supply noise. These problems arise from inefficient power distribution networks, which limit operating frequencies, reduce chip lifespan, and increase power consumption. Existing solutions often involve over-designing power grids, consuming valuable silicon area without fully resolving the underlying issues.\n\n**Key Technical Approach:** This patent introduces a multi-layered power grid system. It features first and third power traces running parallel in a primary metal layer, but crucially, these traces are segmented by precisely defined gaps. These gaps are strategically surrounded by adjacent traces from the same layer. Connecting these segmented traces are second power traces, located in a perpendicular metal layer. This intricate, interwoven structure ensures robust and distributed coupling between the power traces across different layers and within the same layer. The design effectively creates multiple redundant and optimized paths for current flow, significantly reducing localized current densities and improving overall power integrity.\n\n**Business Value and Applications:** The Power Grid of Integrated Circuit offers substantial business value by enabling the development of more advanced and competitive semiconductor products. Chips incorporating this technology can achieve higher operating frequencies with greater stability, consume less power for equivalent performance, and boast extended lifespans due to reduced electromigration. This translates into products that are faster, more reliable, and more energy-efficient, appealing to a broad market from data centers and automotive electronics to consumer devices and IoT.\n\n**Market Opportunity:** The innovation is particularly relevant for industries demanding cutting-edge IC performance, such as high-performance computing, AI/ML hardware, 5G infrastructure, and advanced automotive systems. By providing a foundational improvement in chip power delivery, the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit opens up opportunities for semiconductor manufacturers to differentiate their offerings, capture greater market share, and reduce the total cost of ownership for their customers through improved energy efficiency and reliability.","layman_explanation":"### 1. What Problem Does This Solve?\nImagine a bustling city where electricity needs to be delivered to every home and business. If the power lines (the 'grid') are old, inefficient, or poorly designed, some areas might experience 'brownouts' – a drop in voltage that makes appliances run slowly or fail. In the world of integrated circuits (ICs), which are the 'brains' of all our electronic devices, a similar problem exists. As these chips become incredibly dense and powerful, delivering a stable and consistent flow of electricity to every tiny component is a monumental challenge.\n\nThis challenge manifests as 'IR drop,' where the voltage supplied to different parts of the chip fluctuates due to resistance in the power lines. This can severely limit the chip's speed, cause errors, and even shorten its lifespan. Existing solutions often involve making power lines thicker, which takes up valuable space on the chip, or simply accepting performance limitations. Neither is ideal for the cutting-edge devices we expect today.\n\n### 2. How Does It Work?\nThe **Power Grid of Integrated Circuit** patent introduces a radically smarter way to build these internal 'electrical highways.' Instead of a simple, flat network, think of it as a sophisticated, multi-level freeway system within the chip. It uses two main layers of power lines, each with a specific job.\n\nIn the first layer, there are two types of power lines (let's call them 'main lines' and 'support lines') running parallel. What's clever is that these lines aren't continuous; they have strategic 'gaps.' But these gaps aren't empty! The 'support lines' are designed to fill the gaps of the 'main lines,' and vice-versa, creating an interlocking, puzzle-like pattern. Then, on a second layer, there are more power lines running perpendicularly, acting like bridges that connect all the 'main' and 'support' lines from the first layer.\n\nThis interwoven, multi-layered design ensures that electricity can flow through many different paths, like a well-designed network of roads. If one path gets congested, power can easily reroute through another. This minimizes resistance, ensuring that every part of the chip receives a stable and consistent voltage, much like a city's water system ensuring constant pressure to every tap.\n\n### 3. Why Does This Matter?\nThis innovation isn't just a minor tweak; it's a foundational improvement with significant business implications. By ensuring more stable and efficient power delivery, chips built with this technology can:\n\n*   **Perform Faster:** With consistent voltage, chips can operate at higher speeds without errors, leading to more powerful smartphones, faster data centers, and quicker AI processing.\n*   **Be More Reliable:** Reduced voltage fluctuations and better current distribution mean less stress on the tiny components, extending the chip's lifespan and reducing product failures.\n*   **Consume Less Power:** Efficient power delivery means less energy is wasted as heat, leading to longer battery life for mobile devices and lower electricity bills for large-scale computing operations.\n*   **Enable New Products:** This foundational improvement allows engineers to design even more complex and powerful chips, opening doors for entirely new applications in fields like autonomous vehicles, advanced IoT, and cutting-edge medical devices.\n\nFor businesses, this translates to a competitive edge. Companies adopting this technology can offer superior products, reduce operational costs, and innovate faster in a rapidly evolving market. It's an investment in the core infrastructure that powers all modern electronics.\n\n### 4. What's Next?\nThe principles of the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit are crucial for the continued advancement of all digital technology. As we push towards smaller transistors and more integrated functions, the need for flawless power delivery will only intensify. This patent lays a groundwork for future chip generations, particularly those driving Artificial Intelligence, high-performance computing, and edge devices. Expect to see this kind of fundamental innovation becoming a standard, quietly enabling the next wave of technological breakthroughs and solidifying the foundation for increasingly powerful and efficient electronics.","technical_analysis":"The **Power Grid of Integrated Circuit** patent (US-9852989) details a sophisticated architecture for power delivery networks (PDNs) within integrated circuits (ICs), designed to overcome the persistent challenges of IR drop, electromigration, and power supply noise. This technical analysis delves into the structural and functional specifics of this innovation, highlighting its implications for modern semiconductor design.\n\n**1. Technical Architecture:**\nThe core of this invention lies in its multi-layered and segmented trace configuration. The patent describes a power grid comprising:\n*   **First Power Traces:** Disposed in a 'first metal layer' and oriented parallel to a 'first direction.' These traces are not continuous but are arranged in a straight line, separated by a plurality of 'first gaps.'\n*   **Third Power Traces:** Also disposed in the 'first metal layer' and parallel to the 'first direction.' Similar to the first power traces, these are arranged in a straight line, separated by a plurality of 'second gaps.'\n*   **Second Power Traces:** Located in a 'second metal layer,' which is distinct from the first. These traces are oriented parallel to a 'second direction,' which is explicitly stated as perpendicular to the 'first direction.'\n\n**2. Implementation Details and Interconnection:**\nThe ingenuity of the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit stems from the precise geometric relationship and coupling between these traces and layers:\n*   **Gap Configuration:** Each 'first gap' (separating first power traces) is surrounded by two adjacent 'third power traces.' Conversely, each 'second gap' (separating third power traces) is surrounded by two adjacent 'first power traces.' This creates an interlocking pattern within the first metal layer, effectively using the presence of one type of trace to define the boundaries of the gaps in the other.\n*   **Cross-Layer Coupling:** The first power traces are coupled to the third power traces via the second power traces. This implies that the perpendicular second power traces act as critical interconnects, bridging the segmented first and third traces. This forms a highly redundant and distributed mesh-like network, where power can flow not just along the primary direction within the first layer, but also be distributed and re-routed through the perpendicular second layer.\n\n**3. Performance Characteristics and Advantages:**\nThis architectural design offers several significant performance enhancements:\n*   **Reduced IR Drop:** By creating multiple, finely distributed current paths and leveraging cross-layer coupling, the effective resistance of the power grid is substantially lowered. This leads to a more uniform voltage distribution across the IC, minimizing voltage drops even under high current demands.\n*   **Improved Electromigration Resistance:** The distributed nature of the current flow prevents localized current crowding, which is a primary cause of electromigration. By spreading the current load across a wider network, the lifespan and reliability of the metal traces are significantly enhanced.\n*   **Enhanced Power Supply Noise Suppression:** The lower impedance offered by this robust power grid design provides better decoupling for transient current spikes. This effectively reduces power supply noise, which is crucial for maintaining signal integrity in high-frequency digital circuits and precision in analog blocks.\n*   **Potential for Area Efficiency:** While utilizing multiple metal layers, the intelligent segmentation and coupling might allow for more optimized use of silicon area compared to simply widening traces in a conventional grid to achieve similar power integrity levels.\n\n**4. Integration Patterns and Design Flow:**\nImplementing the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit would require advanced Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools capable of handling complex multi-layer routing rules and intricate gap definitions. Custom power grid synthesis algorithms would be needed to automatically generate these structures based on power consumption maps and IR drop targets. Fabrication processes would also need to be precise to ensure the accurate layering and perpendicularity of traces and the exact dimensions of the gaps.\n\nThis technology represents a foundational advancement in IC power grid design. Its principles can be integrated into various chip architectures, from high-performance CPUs and GPUs to specialized AI accelerators and low-power IoT devices, providing a critical building block for the next generation of semiconductor innovation.","business_analysis":"The **Power Grid of Integrated Circuit** patent (US-9852989) presents a compelling business opportunity by addressing a fundamental and increasingly critical challenge in semiconductor manufacturing: efficient and reliable power delivery within integrated circuits (ICs). As the demand for higher performance, greater functionality, and lower power consumption in electronic devices continues to surge, innovations in power integrity become paramount, making this patent a strategic asset.\n\n**1. Market Opportunity Size:**\nThe global semiconductor market, valued at hundreds of billions of dollars, is driven by continuous innovation in IC design. Every electronic device relies on an IC, and the efficiency of its power grid directly impacts its performance and cost. Industries such as high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), 5G infrastructure, automotive electronics, and IoT are experiencing explosive growth, all demanding chips with superior power integrity. This patent directly caters to these high-value segments, offering a solution to a universal problem across the entire IC industry. The market for power management ICs alone is projected to reach over $50 billion, indicating the scale of investment in power-related solutions, of which this foundational IP is a critical enabler.\n\n**2. Competitive Advantages:**\nAdoption of the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit offers significant competitive advantages:\n*   **Superior Performance:** Chips designed with this technology can achieve higher clock frequencies and greater computational throughput due to reduced IR drop and more stable voltage supplies. This directly translates to faster products, a key differentiator in competitive markets.\n*   **Enhanced Reliability and Lifespan:** By mitigating electromigration and power supply noise, chips become more robust and durable, leading to lower warranty costs and higher customer satisfaction.\n*   **Energy Efficiency:** Optimized power delivery means less wasted energy, leading to lower power consumption for equivalent performance. This is crucial for battery-powered devices and reducing operational costs in data centers.\n*   **Area Optimization:** While multi-layered, the intelligent design can potentially allow for a more efficient use of silicon area compared to over-designed conventional grids, enabling smaller form factors or more features per chip.\n\n**3. Revenue Potential and Business Models:**\nThe patent holder can leverage this innovation through several business models:\n*   **IP Licensing:** Licensing the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit to major semiconductor foundries (e.g., TSMC, Samsung, Intel) and fabless design companies (e.g., NVIDIA, Qualcomm, AMD) would generate significant royalty revenues. This is a common and lucrative model for foundational IP in the semiconductor space.\n*   **Consulting and Design Services:** Offering specialized design services for integrating this power grid architecture into custom IC designs.\n*   **Integration into Proprietary Products:** If the patent holder is also a chip designer, integrating this technology into their own products would provide a strong performance and efficiency advantage, boosting market share and profitability.\n\n**4. Strategic Positioning:**\nOwning or licensing this technology positions a company as a leader in foundational IC design, crucial for the next wave of technological advancement. It provides a strategic advantage in developing high-performance, low-power chips that will be essential for future innovations in AI, edge computing, quantum computing interfaces, and advanced mobile platforms. This patent moves beyond incremental improvements, offering a core architectural enhancement.\n\n**5. ROI Projections:**\nInvestment in the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit, either through R&D or licensing, can yield substantial returns. For licensees, it means accelerating product development cycles, improving product performance metrics, and reducing manufacturing risks associated with power integrity. For the patent holder, the potential for broad industry adoption through licensing agreements represents a significant, long-term revenue stream, with a high return on investment given the pervasive need for better power delivery in all advanced ICs. The ability to enable higher performance with greater reliability directly impacts the market value and competitiveness of end products, making this a highly valuable asset.","faqs":[{"answer":"The Power Grid of Integrated Circuit refers to a patented invention (US-9852989) that describes an advanced power distribution network within an integrated circuit (IC). It's essentially a highly optimized internal electrical system designed to deliver stable and efficient power to all the tiny components of a computer chip. Unlike traditional, often simpler power grids, this innovation uses a sophisticated multi-layered structure with strategically arranged traces and gaps.\n\nSpecifically, the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit features first and third power traces located in a primary metal layer, running parallel to each other. These traces are segmented by precisely defined gaps. An additional set of second power traces is situated in a second metal layer, oriented perpendicularly to the first layer's traces. The genius lies in how these elements are interconnected and designed to work together, ensuring a superior flow of electricity.\n\nThis intricate design allows for a more uniform voltage distribution across the chip, minimizing voltage drops and current crowding. It's a foundational improvement aimed at enhancing the overall performance, reliability, and energy efficiency of modern microprocessors and other complex ICs. Understanding the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit is key to appreciating the underlying engineering that enables today's high-tech devices.","question":"What is Power Grid of Integrated Circuit?"},{"answer":"The Power Grid of Integrated Circuit (US-985989) operates on an innovative principle of multi-layered, segmented, and cross-coupled power distribution. Here's a breakdown of its working mechanism:\n\nFirst, in a 'first metal layer,' the patent describes two types of power traces: 'first power traces' and 'third power traces.' Both run parallel to a 'first direction.' However, they are not continuous; the first power traces are separated by 'first gaps,' and the third power traces by 'second gaps.' The clever part is the interlocking arrangement: each first gap is surrounded by two adjacent third power traces, and each second gap is surrounded by two adjacent first power traces. This creates a fine-grained, interwoven pattern within this single layer.\n\nSecond, a 'second metal layer' contains 'second power traces' that run perpendicularly to the first layer's traces. These second power traces act as critical bridges. The first power traces are coupled to the third power traces specifically via these perpendicular second power traces.\n\nThis combined architecture creates a highly redundant and distributed power network. By having multiple, finely-divided paths for current flow, and by leveraging the cross-layer connections, the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit ensures that electricity is delivered uniformly. This minimizes localized current density, reduces resistance, and provides a stable voltage supply across the entire chip, even during peak power demands. It's an intelligent routing system that optimizes power flow at a microscopic level.","question":"How does Power Grid of Integrated Circuit work?"},{"answer":"The Power Grid of Integrated Circuit (US-9852989) primarily solves critical power integrity issues that plague modern integrated circuits (ICs), especially as they become denser and operate at higher speeds. The main problems it addresses are:\n\n1.  **IR Drop (Voltage Drop):** In conventional power grids, the resistance of the metal wires causes the voltage to drop as electricity travels across the chip. This 'IR drop' can lead to inconsistent voltage levels, slowing down parts of the chip, causing timing errors, and impacting overall performance.\n2.  **Electromigration:** High current densities in narrow power lines can cause the metal atoms to slowly migrate, leading to voids or shorts over time. This degrades the chip's reliability and shortens its lifespan.\n3.  **Power Supply Noise:** Rapid changes in current demand (e.g., when a part of the chip quickly turns on or off) can create voltage fluctuations, or 'noise,' on the power lines. This noise can interfere with sensitive signals and cause operational instability.\n\nBy introducing a multi-layered, strategically gapped, and cross-coupled power grid, the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit significantly reduces these issues. It ensures a more uniform voltage distribution, prevents current bottlenecks, and provides a more stable power environment, thereby enabling higher performance, greater reliability, and improved energy efficiency for advanced chips.","question":"What problem does Power Grid of Integrated Circuit solve?"},{"answer":"The patent for Power Grid of Integrated Circuit (US-9852989) lists no specific inventors or assignee in the provided data. This can happen for various reasons, such as the information not being available in the abstract, or the user's data source being incomplete for these fields. Typically, such an invention would originate from a research and development team within a semiconductor company or a leading academic institution specializing in microelectronics.\n\nIn the context of patent filings, the inventors are the individuals who conceived the inventive subject matter, while the assignee is the entity (usually a company or university) to whom the patent rights are transferred or assigned. For a foundational technology like the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit, the inventors would be highly skilled engineers or scientists with expertise in VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) design, semiconductor physics, and power integrity. The assignee would likely be a major player in the semiconductor industry, such as a chip manufacturer, a fabless design house, or a leading technology company investing heavily in advanced silicon architectures. Without the specific details, we can infer that this innovation emerged from a significant R&D effort in the field.","question":"Who invented Power Grid of Integrated Circuit?"},{"answer":"The Power Grid of Integrated Circuit (US-9852989) offers several significant benefits that are crucial for modern and future integrated circuits:\n\n1.  **Enhanced Performance:** By significantly reducing IR drop and providing a more stable voltage supply, this technology allows chips to operate at higher clock frequencies and achieve greater computational throughput without encountering performance bottlenecks or errors. This translates directly to faster devices and more efficient processing.\n2.  **Improved Reliability and Lifespan:** The distributed current paths and reduced current crowding mitigate electromigration, a major cause of chip degradation and failure. This extends the operational lifespan of the ICs and reduces the likelihood of costly field failures, improving overall product reliability.\n3.  **Greater Energy Efficiency:** Optimized power delivery means less energy is wasted as heat due to resistive losses. This leads to lower power consumption for a given level of performance, resulting in longer battery life for mobile devices and reduced energy costs for data centers and other high-performance computing environments.\n4.  **Better Signal Integrity:** The robust and low-impedance power grid effectively suppresses power supply noise, which can interfere with sensitive signals. This leads to cleaner signals, improving the overall signal integrity and stability of the chip, especially critical in mixed-signal and high-frequency designs.\n\nThese benefits collectively make the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit a foundational technology for driving the next generation of high-performance, reliable, and energy-efficient electronic devices across various industries.","question":"What are the key benefits of Power Grid of Integrated Circuit?"},{"answer":"The Power Grid of Integrated Circuit (US-9852989) differentiates itself from prior art power grid designs through its unique multi-layered, segmented, and cross-coupled architecture, which offers a more sophisticated approach to power integrity.\n\nPrior art often relies on simpler mesh grids or hierarchical structures with continuous traces. While these designs have evolved, they frequently encounter limitations such as significant IR drop, localized current crowding leading to electromigration, and insufficient noise suppression as ICs scale. They often require compromises, like making traces excessively wide (consuming area) or accepting performance limitations.\n\nIn contrast, the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit introduces a novel design where two types of parallel power traces in a 'first metal layer' are not continuous but are strategically segmented by gaps. Crucially, these gaps are interleaved and surrounded by adjacent traces from the *same* layer. This creates a highly intricate, fine-grained network within that single layer. Furthermore, it explicitly defines a 'second metal layer' with perpendicular traces that specifically couple the segmented traces from the first layer. This intricate, interwoven design, leveraging both in-plane segmentation and orthogonal cross-layer coupling, provides a far more distributed and redundant current path than typical prior art. This results in superior IR drop reduction, enhanced electromigration resistance, and better power supply noise suppression, enabling higher performance and reliability without the traditional trade-offs.","question":"How is Power Grid of Integrated Circuit different from prior art?"},{"answer":"The Power Grid of Integrated Circuit (US-9852989) is a foundational technology with the potential to significantly impact a wide range of industries that rely on advanced integrated circuits (ICs). Its ability to deliver more stable, efficient, and reliable power to chips makes it critical for:\n\n1.  **High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Data Centers:** HPC systems, servers, and cloud infrastructure require maximum performance and energy efficiency. This patent enables faster processors with reduced operational costs due to lower power consumption and improved reliability.\n2.  **Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML):** AI accelerators and processors, both in data centers and at the edge, demand extremely stable power for complex computations. The Power Grid of Integrated Circuit can unlock higher performance for AI training and inference, driving innovation in AI applications.\n3.  **Automotive Electronics:** Modern vehicles, especially those with Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving capabilities, rely on a multitude of high-performance, highly reliable ICs. This technology ensures the critical power integrity needed for safety-critical real-time processing.\n4.  **Mobile and Consumer Electronics:** Smartphones, tablets, and wearables will benefit from extended battery life, faster processing speeds, and greater overall reliability, enhancing the user experience.\n5.  **5G and Next-Generation Communication:** Chips in 5G base stations, networking equipment, and future communication devices require robust power delivery for high-speed data processing and signal integrity.\n6.  **Internet of Things (IoT) and Edge Computing:** For devices that need to perform complex tasks locally with limited power, the efficiency gains from this power grid are invaluable.\n\nEssentially, any industry pushing the boundaries of computing power, energy efficiency, and reliability in electronic devices will find the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit to be a crucial enabling technology.","question":"What industries will Power Grid of Integrated Circuit impact?"},{"answer":"The patent for Power Grid of Integrated Circuit (US-9852989) has specific dates associated with its lifecycle:\n\n*   **Filing Date:** The patent application for this invention was filed on **2017-01-03**. This is the date when the inventors or their assignee submitted the application to the patent office, formally initiating the patent examination process. The filing date is significant as it often establishes the priority date for the invention, which can be crucial in cases of competing inventions.\n\n*   **Publication Date:** The patent was published on **2017-12-26**. The publication date marks when the patent application (or the granted patent) is made publicly available by the patent office. This allows the public, including competitors and researchers, to review the details of the invention. In many jurisdictions, applications are published a certain period after filing, regardless of whether they have been granted yet. In this case, the publication occurred less than a year after filing, indicating a relatively swift processing or a direct publication of the granted patent.\n\nThese dates are important for understanding the timeline of the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit's intellectual property protection and its entry into the public domain of technical knowledge.","question":"When was Power Grid of Integrated Circuit filed/granted?"},{"answer":"The commercial applications of the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit (US-9852989) are extensive, spanning across any sector that utilizes advanced integrated circuits and demands high performance, reliability, and energy efficiency. This foundational technology can be integrated into a wide array of products, enabling superior functionality and competitive advantages:\n\n1.  **Processor Manufacturing:** Major CPU, GPU, and SoC manufacturers can use this technology to design next-generation processors that run faster, consume less power, and are more reliable, catering to gaming, professional workstations, and enterprise servers.\n2.  **Artificial Intelligence Hardware:** Companies developing AI accelerators, neural processing units (NPUs), and specialized silicon for machine learning can leverage the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit to enhance computational throughput and energy efficiency, crucial for both training massive models and deploying AI at the edge.\n3.  **Data Center Infrastructure:** Server manufacturers and cloud providers can benefit from chips with reduced power consumption and improved reliability, leading to lower operating costs (electricity, cooling) and extended hardware lifespan in their data centers.\n4.  **Consumer Electronics:** Devices like smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, and wearables can feature longer battery life, snappier performance, and greater durability due to the improved power integrity provided by this innovation.\n5.  **Automotive Industry:** For advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), infotainment systems, and autonomous driving platforms, the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit ensures the real-time processing capabilities and high reliability essential for safety-critical applications.\n6.  **Networking and Telecommunications:** Equipment for 5G/6G infrastructure, routers, and switches can benefit from more efficient and reliable chips to handle the ever-increasing demands for data bandwidth and low latency.\n\nIn essence, the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit is not tied to a single product but provides a fundamental improvement applicable across the entire semiconductor ecosystem, driving innovation and efficiency in countless commercial products.","question":"What are the commercial applications of Power Grid of Integrated Circuit?"},{"answer":"The Power Grid of Integrated Circuit (US-9852989) lays a robust foundation for future developments in semiconductor power delivery, with several exciting trajectories expected:\n\n1.  **Integration into Advanced Process Nodes:** As fabrication technologies shrink to 3nm and beyond, the challenges of IR drop and electromigration will intensify. This power grid architecture is expected to be crucial for enabling these smaller nodes, potentially becoming a standard feature in advanced process design kits (PDKs).\n2.  **Adaptive Power Grids:** Future developments might involve making the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit more dynamic and adaptive. This could include real-time monitoring of power demands and intelligently reconfiguring power paths or adjusting voltage levels within the grid to optimize performance and efficiency based on workload.\n3.  **Novel Materials Integration:** As new, lower-resistance materials (e.g., graphene, carbon nanotubes, or advanced alloys) are explored for interconnects, the flexible and distributed architecture of this power grid could be optimized to seamlessly integrate these materials, further enhancing power delivery efficiency.\n4.  **3D Integration and Chiplets:** With the rise of 3D stacked ICs and chiplet architectures, the need for efficient vertical and horizontal power delivery is paramount. The principles of the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit could be extended to manage power across multiple stacked dies or heterogeneous chiplets, ensuring stable power throughout complex 3D systems.\n5.  **Enhanced Power-Performance-Area (PPA) Optimization:** Continued research will focus on fine-tuning the design parameters (gap sizes, trace widths, layer counts) to achieve even better trade-offs between power consumption, performance, and silicon area, pushing the boundaries of what's possible in chip design.\n\nThese developments signify that the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit is not a static solution but a foundational innovation that will continue to evolve, addressing the ever-growing power integrity challenges in future generations of electronic devices and enabling new computing paradigms.","question":"What are the future developments expected for Power Grid of Integrated Circuit?"}],"topics":["power grid of integrated circuit","IC power delivery","semiconductor power grid","IR drop reduction","chip reliability","technical","background","integrated"],"tech_cluster":null},"seo":{"title":"Power Grid of Integrated Circuit - Patent US-9852989","description":"Discover the Power Grid of Integrated Circuit patent, a revolutionary IC power delivery system reducing IR drop, enhancing reliability, and boosting chip performance.","keywords":["power grid of integrated circuit","IC power delivery","semiconductor power grid","IR drop reduction","chip reliability","power integrity","integrated circuit design","US-9852989 patent","advanced chip architecture","electromigration mitigation","power supply noise"]},"attribution":{"source":"Patentable","source_url":"https://patentable.app","canonical_url":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-9852989","license":"CC-BY-4.0-like","license_terms":"AI-generated analysis on this page (summary, layman_explanation, technical_analysis, business_analysis, faqs) may be reused with attribution and a visible link back to the canonical URL above. Patent abstracts, claims, and bibliographic data are USPTO public domain.","required_link":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-9852989","citation_suggestion":"Patentable. \"Power grid of integrated circuit\" (US-9852989). https://patentable.app/patents/US-9852989","copyright_holder":"Nomic Interactive Technology LLC"},"links":{"html":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-9852989","json":"https://patentable.app/api/llm-context/US-9852989","site":"https://patentable.app","llms_txt":"https://patentable.app/llms.txt"},"generated_at":"2026-06-06T07:14:32.919Z"}