Tutorial 1 Thermal-Aware Design Techniques for Nanometer VLSI Chip

Process scaling and aggressive performance improvements have resulted in a dramatic power consumption increase. Power density directly translates into heat; as a result, the temperature in modern VLSI circuits increases dramatically due to smaller feature size, higher packing density, and rising power consumption. Temperature affects not only the reliability but also the performance, power, and cost of the embedded system. This tutorial shows the importance of the thermal issues in nanometer VLSI chips, addresses the fundamentals of temperature aware design techniques from microarchitecture level to the physical design level, including both dynamic thermal management and design time thermal-aware techniques. This tutorial is targeted at researchers/industry practitioners who wish to gain a background on the thermal problem, the dynamic and design time techniques that exist to counter this problem and future challenges that lie ahead. An undergraduate degree in computer science or computer engineering will be a sufficient prerequisite for this tutorial and no additional background/experience is essential.