Power and Thermal Management in VLSI Circuits

The use of integrated circuits in high-performance computing, telecommunications, and consumer electronics has been growing at a booming pace. As more and more complex functions are required in various data processing devices, the need to integrate these functions in a small package is also increasing. The integration of a large number of functions on a single chip as well as the scaling of technology brings up enormous challenges that must be resolved by designers. As the silicon industry moves towards nanometer designs, one of the most important design challenges cited is the growing chip power consumption and its impact on the chip´s thermal integrity. This phenomenon threats the life time of silicon technology and will hinder the proliferation of the microelectronics industry if not controlled