Mixed-mode temperature modeling of full-chip based on individual non-isothermal device operations

Abstract

We report on a novel method for predicting the temperature profile of complex integrated circuits at the resolution of a single device. The proposed new modeling method establishes the necessary link between full-chip heating and non-isothermal device operation for resolving effects of the individual devices on the overall full-chip heating. The technique accounts for the application specific activity levels and the layout replacements of individual devices. We use a lumped full-chip heating model that has thermal resistances and capacitances determined by the layout design, and heat sources that are set according to the operation statistics of devices on the chip. To embed the effects of operation statistics for a given application, we use a Monte Carlo type methodology. We analyzed a Pentium III [ http://www.intel.com] chip considering a realistic layout geometry and averaged activity statistics. Our analysis shows 43 and 33 K increases above the ambient for the peak and median temperatures, respectively.