An Open-Hardware Platform For Mpsoc Thermal Modeling

Current integrated circuits exhibit an impressive and increasing power density. In this scenario, thermal modelling plays a key role in the design of next generation cooling and thermal management solutions. However, extending existing thermal models, or designing new ones to account for new cooling solutions, requires parameter identification as well as a validation phase to ensure correctness of the results. In this paper, we propose a flexible solution to the validation issue, in the form of a hardware platform based on a Thermal Test Chip (TTC). The proposed platform allows to test a heat dissipation solution under realistic conditions, including fast spatial and temporal power gradients as well as hot spots, while collecting a temperature map of the active silicon layer. The combined power/temperature map is the key input to validate a thermal model, in both the steady state and transient case. This paper presents the current development of the platform, and provides a first validation dataset for the case of a commercial heat sink.