Wireless Power Transfer Using Resonant Inductive

Coupling for 3D Integrated ICs

Sangwook Han, and David D. Wentzloff
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
{swhanpns, wentzlof}@umich.edu

Abstract- In this paper we introduce a wireless power transfer

scheme using resonant inductive coupling for 3DICs to enhance
power transfer efficiency and power transfer density with smaller
coils. Numerical analysis and optimal conditions are presented for
both power transfer efficiency and density. HFSS simulation
results are shown to verify the theoretical results. Coils for the
power link are designed using a Chartered 0.13m CMOS process.
The peak power transfer efficiency is 52% and power transfer
density is 49mW/mm2.

I. INTRODUCTION
3D integration is a promising solution for shortening
interconnect in parallel processing in order to achieve smaller
form-factor and higher performance. Several wired and
wireless methods have been proposed to implement data
communication among vertically stacked ICs in a package
[1,2]. However, only wired methods such as wire-bonding or
micro-bumps have been used for the power supply, even
though wireless power delivery has unique advantages in 3DIC
applications. It can eliminate the Known-Good-Die (KGD)
issues to improve the yield, and some MEMS applications
require non-contact power transfer [3], which can be realized
by wireless power transfer. Fig. 1 illustrates two examples of
systems requiring wireless power transfer.
Previous work has reported wireless power transmission
between two inductively coupled coils in stacked dies within a
package [4]. This uses standard inductive coupling which
results in relatively low power efficiency (<30%) and large
coils (700x700m) since most of flux is not linked between the
coils. The resonance of an inductively coupled system increases
the amount of magnetic flux linked between coils and improves
the power transmission significantly [5]. In this paper, we will
introduce wireless power transfer using resonant inductive
coupling for 3DICs to increase power transfer efficiency and
density with smaller coils.
The paper is organized as follows; In Section II, we will
discuss power transfer efficiency. The optimal condition and
numerical analysis on maximum power transfer efficiency will
be introduced. Section III discusses power transfer density. In
IC designs, silicon area is always a major concern. Therefore,
power density is sometimes more critical than power efficiency
inside a package. We will discuss the optimal values for coil
size, load resistance, and coupling coefficient k for maximum
Fig. 1. The applications of wireless power transfer using inductive coupling:
(a) Vertical stacking of heterogeneous processes such as logic and DRAM
(b) Information Tethered Micro Automated Rotary Stages (ITMARS).
Sensors and communication link are integrated on a rotating stage in a
substrate.
power transfer density. Section IV will show the coil design for
an inductive power link and the simulation results of power
efficiency and density. Section V concludes the paper.
II. POWER TRANSFER EFFICIENCY
A. Equivalent Circuit
Fig. 2 shows the concept of an inductive power link and its
equivalent circuit. The RF input signal with a power amplifier
in the transmitter is modeled as a voltage source in the primary
resonator. The receiver is modeled as a resister RL in the
secondary resonator. k is the transformer coupling coefficient,
and L1 and L2 are self-inductance in transmitter and receiver
coils, respectively. R1 and R2 model the losses in the coils. C1
and C2 are capacitors including parasitic and external
capacitance to create a resonance at the transmitter and receiver
side. Standard inductive coupling uses a frequency well below
the self-resonant frequency of the inductors, therefore parasitic

1
 Fig. 3. (a) Entire equivalent circuit (b) Secondary equivalent circuit

Combining (2) and (3), the total power efficiency of the

inductive power link is derived as a form similar to [6-8].


Fig. 2. (a) Concept of wireless inductive power link (b) Equivalent circuit (4)


capacitance (C1, C2) are typically ignored in this case. Resonant
inductive coupling, however, uses this capacitance to resonate C. Maximum Power Transfer Efficiency
with the inductors, increasing the flux linked between The power transfer efficiency can be maximized by adjusting
transmitter and receiver. conditions such as R, L, C of coils and RL value. In practice, for
B. Analysis with Equivalent Circuit planar integrated spiral inductors it is difficult to adjust the L, C,
As shown in Fig. 3 (a), the circuit with a transformer can be and R values of the coils independently, since all the values are
converted to the equivalent circuit with the reflected load Ze. partially correlated. Therefore, RL is the best practical factor to
Ze captures the impact of the secondary part on the primary adjust when optimizing the wireless link for a given coil. By
part. The reflected impedance Ze can be expressed by differentiating (4) w.r.t. RL, the optimal RL can be obtained as

 
 (5)

(1)

This optimal condition makes the maximum power transfer
efficiency a function of coupling coefficient k and quality
where The power factor of the coils, both of which may be optimized when
consumed at Ze should be identical to the power transferred to designing the coils.
the secondary part. Considering that the real part of (1) is the
resistive component, we can derive the fraction of delivered (6)

power to secondary part at resonance. This is the power
efficiency at the primary side, 1. With large values of k and Q, the power efficiency
 approaches 1 as expected.

(2)


III. POWER TRANSFER DENSITY

At the secondary equivalent circuit, shown in Fig. 3 (b), the
parasitic resistance can be converted into an equivalent parallel
loss across the LC tank. The power from the primary part will
be dissipated in both R2 and RL, and the power consumed at RL
represents the net output power available at the receiver. At
resonance, the power efficiency at the secondary part, 2 can be
written as
(3)
through the same area, as illustrated in Fig. 4.
While high power transfer efficiency is critical for low power
systems, area-constrained systems can require larger power
transfer through smaller area coils at an acceptable loss in
efficiency. With a fixed distance between two coils, larger coils
result in larger k and higher efficiency. However, using larger
coils requires more silicon area, and it ultimately decreases the
power transfer density. Therefore, a parallel power transfer
scheme can be taken into consideration in order to increase
power density and maximize the amount of power delivery

2
 Die #1

Logic

Die #2

Logic

(a)
Die #1

Logic
Fig. 5. Equivalent circuit for power density calculation

Die #2

 (10)

Logic

C. Power Transfer Density

(b) The power transfer density is defined as the amount of
Fig. 4. Concept of parallel inductive power transfer (a) parallel power available transferred power per the unit area. Assuming square-
delivery using multiple maximum-power-density coils (b) single power shaped, planar spiral coils are used with diameter d, the power
delivery using one large coil transfer density will be a function of d. In addition, coupling
coefficient k is also the function of d [9].
In order to compare the performance of single inductive
power link to a parallel inductive power link, the power transfer

density should be analyzed first. (11)

A. Output Delivered Power
Fig. 5 shows that the transformer circuit has the equivalent where x is the distance between coils. With (11), the power
circuit with reflected impedance and parallel resistance. The transfer density is given by
reflected impedance is split into the imaginary and real part,
and the real resistive part is converted to parallel resistance 

using quality factor .
At resonance, the input power is given by

(12)



(7)
By differentiating (10) w.r.t. d, the optimal size of the coils and
corresponding k can be found as the function of the separation
and the output power can be written as between coils, x. For instance, when x=15m, the optimal d is
58m, and k is equal to 0.41.


IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

A. Simulation Setup
(8)
To verify this model, we designed planar spiral coils using a
Chartered 0.13m CMOS process. Fig. 6 shows the simulation
setup of two identical square coils vertically stacked to
B. Optimal Load
The power transfer also can be maximized by adjusting the implement the inductive power link through stacked ICs. We
RL value. By differentiating (8) w.r.t. RL at resonance, the sweep the separation x, and the diameter d to test power
optimal RL can be expressed as efficiency and density. HFSS is used to extract the lumped-
element models for coils, and these models are imported to
Sperctre to simulate the inductive power link.
 (9)
B. Power Transfer Efficiency
Substituting the optimal RL into (8), we get the maximum
As shown in (6), the maximum power transfer efficiency
power transfer amount as
strongly depends on k. To show this dependency, we swept the

3
 TA
ABLE I
0.9 4
4500
DETAILLS OF COILS RLopt (calculated))
Valuee 0.8 RLopt (simulated) 4
4000
Parametter P
Power Power 0.7 3
3500

Coupling Coefficient k
Eff
fficiency Density
0.6 3
3000
Diameterr d 6
60m 20~120m

RL opt ()
Distancee x 5~~30m 15m 0.5 2
2500
Widthh 00.65m 0.65~1.5m 0.4 2
2000
Space 00.35m 0.35~2.0m
0.3 1500
Number of turns 5 5
Number of layers
l 4 4 0.2 1000
Q 3.92 1.27~4.16
0.1 k (calculated) 5
500
freqres 3.75GHz 1
1.33~10.1GHz z k (simulated)
k 00.432 0.046~0.773 0.0 0
20 40 60 80 10
00 120
Diameter of Coils (um)
(a)
0
0.30 6
60
PWR Density (Calc
P culated)

Power Transfer Density (mW/mm )

PWR
P Density (Simulated)

2
0
0.25 5
50
Delivered Power (mW)

0
0.20 4
40

0
0.15 3
30

0
0.10 2
20

0
0.05 10
Delive
ered Power (Calcu
ulated)
Delive
ered Power (Simullated)
Fiig. 6. Two verticaally stacked coils for wireless induuctive power link 0.00
0 0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
Coupling Coefficient
C k
Distance between Coils (m) (
(b)
30 2
25 20 15 10 5
0.55 Fig. 8. (a) The coil diameter vs. couupling coefficientt k and the optim
mal RL
(b) coupling coefficcient k vs. poweer transfer amounnt and power trransfer
0.50
denssity
Power Transfer Efficiency

0.45
0.40
0.35
exppected, higherr k results in higher powerr transfer effiiciency.
Whhen k=0.887 (60m coils, 55m separationn), we can achieve a
0.30
powwer transfer effficiency of 522%.
0.25
0.20 C. Power Transfer Density
0.15 T verify the power transfeer density moodel, we desiggned 11
To
0.10
couupled coils which
w have vvarying diameeters from 200m to
PWR Effic
ciency (Calculated) 1200m in 10m steps. The diistance betweeen the paired coils is
0.05 PWR Effic
ciency (Simulated
d)
fixeed at 15m, which
w can be rreasonably acchieved with face-to-
f
0.00
0.1 0.2 0.3 0
0.4 0.5 0..6 0.7 0.8
8 0.9 face stacking of two CMOS die. d Over this range, k variees from
Coup nt k
pling Coefficien 0.005 to 0.77, asa shown inn Fig. 8 (a). With the specifics
dimmensions, we can calculate k and the op ptimal RL by (9)
( and
Fiig. 7. Coupling cooefficient k vs. poower transfer efficiency
(111) respectivelly, and the theoretical values matcch the
sim
mulation resultts.
disstance x from m 5m to 30m
3 with 60m-sized
6 c
coils. It F 8 (b) show
Fig. ws the maxim mum deliveredd power amouunt and
maaintains a Q-ffactor of 3.9 while
w k varies from 0.125 too 0.887. powwer transfer density depeending on k. k As mentioned in
Fig. 7 shows the t simulationn results of the
t maximum m power Secction III, whenn the separatiion x=15m, the
t optimal cooil size
traansfer efficien
ncy when usinng the optimall load resistannce. The for the maximum m power dennsity is 58m m and k is 0.4 41. The
simmulation valuues match the t theoretical values well.
w As mulation resultt verifies this; the optimal k is about 0..35 and
sim

4
 3x
x3 array
2x
x2 array
50 sin
ngle
1.4
40
0
1.2
40

1.0
30
0
30
0.8

20
0
20 0.6

0.4
10 10
0
0.2

0 0.0 0 2
Efficiency (%) Total Am
mount (mW) Density (mW/mm
m)
Fig. 10. Simulation results: power trransfer efficiency
y, total delivered amount,
d power transfer density
and d of three caases

h power efficiiency, higher k and Q are reequired.

sysstems and high
However, in orrder to increaase the abso olute power transfer
t
am
mount, power density
d is critiical, and the optimal
o value of k to
maaximize poweer density deepends on thee distance an nd coil
techhnology. Theerefore, the paarallel inductiive power lin nk with
the optimal sizedd coils can deeliver more po ower than thee single
indductive power link can while the latter haas higher efficiiency.

ACKNOW
WLEDGMENT

S
Sangwook H
Han is parttially funded
d by a Saamsung
t DARPA Young
Schholarship. This work is suupported by the
Fig. 9. Simulation
F n setup for parallel inductive pow
wer link (a) 3x3 array of Facculty Award.
6
60m x 60m coils (b) 2x2 array of 90m x 90m m coils (c) singlee 200m
x 200m
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