Compact and voltage-scalable sensor for accurate thermal sensing in dynamic thermal management

摘要: Today's microprocessors and Systems-on-Chip are thermally limited. Many, therefore, employ dynamic thermal management (DTM) to maximize performance under a reliability constraint. Accurate monitoring is critical as temperature underestimation can hurt by excessively aging devices overestimation unnecessarily throttling computing components. Placing sensors close potential hotspots help accuracy, but it non-trivial often form inside digital blocks consisting of densely placed cells. Large disrupt cell placement thereby increasing wire lengths circuit delays. Furthermore, the sensor needs operate from same power grid circuit, one that be scaled down near-threshold regime via voltage scaling. Absent this ability, separate dedicated supply for further increases area overhead. In paper, we present compact deeply voltage-scalable embedded among cells with little disruption. Simulation results show achieves comparable accuracy other circuits DTM.