New Technology 'Sees' Thermal Distribution
By CXOtoday Staff
Mumbai, Jun 27, 2008

NEC has announced the development of an important new technology that is able to "visualize" the thermal distribution and reduce the power consumption of LSI, which has become an increasingly serious challenge as the miniaturization of LSI continues to advance. These latest developments have been demonstrated through NEC's SX-9 super computer.

The new technology features scores of thermal sensors, 1/10 the size of previously available sensors, which are internally located throughout the LSI, and convert temperature changes into digital signals that enable the heat distribution of the LSI to be "visualized" in real-time. The miniaturization of the thermal sensors enables them to be widely distributed throughout the LSI, which increases the precision of measurements.

This will allow thermal distribution to be 'visualized,' enabling independent local measures to be taken on specific regions of an LSI chip in order to control heat. This allows tasks to be delegated to less active areas of a chip, which reduces the total amount of electricity required for operations and lessens the environmental impact. Specifically, the widespread use of devices equipped with this latest technology and LSI multi-cores will result in greater optimization of clock-frequency, data processing, and voltage levels, which will deliver a 20-50 % reduction in the power consumption of LSI devices, claims NEC.

NEC has also developed a conversion equation in order to measure the volume of an active LSI's leakage current and to convert it into a temperature. Temperature miscalculations may be corrected through new technologies that take one measure of each thermal sensor's leakage current at room temperature, a process that formerly required multiple measurements, to improve the accuracy of results. Until now, LSI were limited to thermal sensors that delivered temperature measurements whose margin of error exceeded several tens of degrees Celsius. The latest sensors now provide temperature measurements that are within 3 degrees Celsius of accuracy.

These latest technologies promise to become an essential element to the improved performance of LSI, as well as the devices appearing in vehicles, digital AVs, networks, servers and more, which are becoming increasingly dependent on the reliability and environmentally friendly benefits of LSI.


Related Links:

Project Big Green Toward Energy Conservation

Motherboards Make the 'Green' Move