New methodology for thermal analysis of multi-core processors based on dedicated ASIC

Accurate prediction of thermal phenomena occurring in multi-core processors manufactured in new technologies prove to be both crucial and challenging. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce a new methodology for thermal analysis of such chips. The novelty of our approach is the use of a dedicated ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit), composed of a 16×24 array of heat cells, which emulates the power dissipation in a real processor and allows observing the chip temperature distribution in real-time. The ASIC takes as an input the power trace computed by the execution of benchmarks on a cycle-accurate processor simulator. The entire methodology flow is thoroughly described in the paper, including the details about the chip design and power modeling techniques. Post-layout simulations of our ASIC are used to verify the correctness of the design, whereas our approach to power modeling is validated using preliminary thermal simulations performed with existing software tools.