Reducing thermal hotspots in microprocessors with expanded component sizing

Abstract

Thermal hotspots are a destructive phenomenon occurring in contemporary microprocessors. High power density of microprocessors and excessive use of certain microprocessor components by applications are considered the primary causes of increased temperature. Dynamic Thermal Management Techniques used in mitigating excessive temperatures results in throttling of clock speed, which degrades the performance of the microprocessor. In this paper we propose a simple but novel technique to reduce hotspots in microprocessors. We propose to lower the power density of selected high temperature components by increasing the chip area of that component. We select thermally susceptible components that have small footprints and increase the area of such components, thereby reducing the occurrence of hotspots. The overall chip area increase is minimal and our research has shown that the associated delay penalty is negligible.