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Techniques to Minimize Thermal Effects in Typical VLSI Circuits
V. Lakshminarayanan and N. Sriraam

Heat generation and dissipation in a large integrated circuit such as a microprocessor is a complex phenomenon. The heat generation and temperature rise depends on several factors such as the component density, power consumption, design of the chip, arrangement of the power consuming functional blocks within the die, speed of operation, total area of the die, component density per unit area of the die, power consumption per unit device, technology used such as CMOS, bipolar, HCMOS, etc. The challenging problem of heat generation and transfer from the complex device can be handled in different ways. In this paper we discuss a few methods to reduce heat generation at the chip level such as, by using core-switching algorithms and placement of functional blocks in the die area to ensure uniform heat distribution and prevent concentration of heat in a particular area. In this way, thermally induced malfunctions, problems and possibly failures of the large-scale integrated circuits can be prevented, and functional reliability of the devices can be enhanced.

Keywords: Very large scale integrated circuit, thermal, dissipation, heat, alternate switching, cores, placement, functional blocks, die, core-switching algorithm

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