Self Clocked Digital LDO for Cryogenic Power Management in 22nm FDSOI with 98 Percent Efficiency

TL;DR

This paper presents a self-clocked digital LDO designed in FDSOI technology for cryogenic power management in quantum computing, achieving high efficiency and variation tolerance at 4K temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel digital LDO design in FDSOI technology optimized for cryogenic environments, enhancing efficiency and robustness for quantum computing applications.

Findings

Achieves 98% efficiency in cryogenic conditions.

Demonstrates high variation tolerance and fast transient response.

Utilizes backgate biasing to compensate for threshold voltage drift.

Abstract

A universal quantum computer~(QC), though promising ground breaking solutions to complex problems, still faces several challenges with respect to scalability. Current state-of-the-art QC use a great quantity of cables to connect the physical qubits, situated in the cryogenic temperature, to room temperature electronics. Integrated cryogenic electronics together with semiconductor spin qubits is one way closer for scalability. Such a scalable quantum computer can have qubits and the control electronics at 4K stage. Being at 4K, more thermal dissipation is allowed without overloading the cooling capability of the fridge. Still, control and power circuitry is expected to be highly efficient. While commercial CMOS technologies are found to be operatable at \qty{}{mK}, lack of reliable cryogenic models while designing, increased mismatches at cryo temperatures makes the design challenging and risky. Using an FDSOI technology with backgate biasing to compensate for the threshold voltage drift happening at cryo~(compensating around 200mV) and digital circuitry is a way to address this challenge. In this work, a self-clocked digital low dropout regulator (DLDO) is designed in FDSOI for high power efficient, variation tolerant regulator to supply cryogenic circuits for Quantum computing. The proposed digital LDO is more resilient to mismatch and having self clocking and close and fine loops addresses the power efficiency and faster transient response.