Thermal analysis experiences of a tri-core SoC system

Abstract

Higher temperature induced by higher power density results in higher cost, lower performance and lower reliability.The thermal effects become important issues of today's VLSI design. In this paper, we adopt a RC-based thermal model to perform the steady-state and transient thermal analysis for a tri core SoC system. The power information is generated from the ESL power estimation. The results show that the lateral heat dissipation cannot be ignored since hot spots occur in the vicinity where the nearby blocks with high power density, but none of hot spots with the highest power density. Finally, we also compare our fast RC based thermal analysis model with commercial CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) software whose runtime is extremely slow. The results show the high degree of consistency.

Realization of virtual 126-core system with thermal sensor-network using metallic thermal skeletons

“…This fundamental thermal conduction equation describes that the temperature transmitting through the thermal volume depends on time θ and directional thermal conductivities k xx , k yy , and k zz [10]. The boundary conditions of the top and bottom surfaces of the chip are adiabatic and those of the surrounding surfaces are convective.…”

“…In order to keep the original routing and floorplan as much as possible, the temperaturedriven design should be brought in early phases of the design procedure. Recently, more and more researches investigated the thermal solutions for multi-core systems based thermal model [10], [11]. Thermal allocation methodologies are also popular in literatures [12] In this paper, a realistic thermal dissipation methodology for NoC system will be introduced virtual 126-core network as the hot-spot dissipates the generated heat through the metallic thermal skeletons.…”

Design and implementation of 3D-thermal test chip for exploration of package effects

“…Recently, more and more researches investigated the thermal solutions for multi-core systems by using RC-based thermal model [10], [11]. Thermal-aware task allocation methodologies are also popular in literatures [12].…”

Three-Dimensional Integrated Circuits Design for Thousand-Core Processors: From Aspect of Thermal Management

“…This fundamental thermal conduction equation describes that the temperature transmitting through the thermal volume depends on time θ and directional thermal conductivities xx k , yy k , and zz k (Chieh et al, 2010;Lung et al, 2010). The boundary conditions of the top and bottom surfaces of the chip are adiabatic and those of the surrounding surfaces are convective.…”

“…The equivalent thermal conductivity k szz of a thermal ridge is decided by the density of the thermal TSVs in the thermal ridge (Chieh et al, 2010;Lung et al, 2010). To determine k szz , the effective thermal conductivity should be taken into account and described as the following equation:…”