Fundamentals of Power Integrity: Characterizing PDN Noise

Figure 1. Noise tolerances for embedded system
components are becoming ever tighter.

Power integrity concerns maintaining the quality of power from generation to consumption in an embedded system. “Good” power integrity could be defined as having noise levels that are within tolerance. This short series will focus on characterizing noise on your power delivery network (PDN), with the goal of knowing where you must adjust your design to meet those tolerances.

Why do we care about voltage rail noise? As electronic designs strive for ever lower power consumption, power rails already carry very low voltages, often 1 V or less. Components like RF receivers, ADCs and DACs can be affected by noise of less than 1% of the rail value (Figure 1). This means noise tolerances can be as tight as single-digit millivolts, which is why power integrity takes up considerable validation time in labs.

Probe Safety Demystified: CAT Ratings

Figure 1. CAT ratings required to
safely test different electrical sources.
(Sourced from “Measurement Categories,”
Wikipedia, Oct. 28, 2019.)

Any voltage probe will have several published specifications that are meant to indicate under what circumstances that probe is safe to use. They answer questions such as “What is the maximum voltage I can safely run through this probe?” and “Can I safely hold this probe while using it, or does it need to be mounted somewhere far away?” In this post, we’ll explain what the CAT rating is telling you.

CAT ratings are standardized ratings used to categorize the suitability of a voltage measurement device based on the source impedance of what it is used to measure. They are issued by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

Measuring Shared On-Die Power Rails

Figure 1: This schematic represents the signal paths
in typical, general-purpose I/Os

If you're taking power-rail measurements on a semiconductor die that is appropriately instrumented with sense lines and a direct connection to the die's core PDN, you're in pretty good shape. But what if that's not the case? If the die's I/O power rails are shared by the core power rails, here's a way to get your core power-rail measurements anyway.