Thermal Aware Device Design Using Hotspot Analysis

In a high performance circuit design, the dependency of leakage power and lifetime over temperature has emphasized the need for thermal analysis. In several traditional models, the temperature has been assumed to be constant. While the same cannot be valid as the device sizing is reduced in submicron level. In this work, the impact of thermal analysis in a scaled era have been analyzed using HotSpot tool. The analysis has been performed at micro architectural level to trace the impact of thermal parameters at processor level. In a processor the leakage power persistence is non uniform and hence there arises the need to prepare a thermal aware processor at an early design stage itself. The work has revealed the importance of inclusion of thermal parameters as a major design constraint. A thermal analysis performed over a Alpha EV6 processor under three different modes have highlighted the need for temperature hotspot looping during any processor design.