Thermal mangament of multicore processors using power multiplexing

One of the novel methods for the thermal management of multi-core processors is power multiplexing (also known as core hopping) which involves dynamical change of the locations of active cores within the chip at fixed time intervals. The power multiplexing technique helps in reducing the number of hotspots on the chip by providing a spatially uniform thermal profile which in turn lowers the maximum temperature rise on the chip. We quantify the effects of power multiplexing on the thermal profile of multi-core processor chip. Different core migration policies have been implemented in an attempt to evolve an optimally suitable policy for the multiplexing purpose. We observe that the selection of appropriate migration policy and the migration rate can efficiently reduce the spatial non-uniformity and peak temperature on the chip. The ratio of active to total cores has been varied to accommodate and analyze the effect of varying computing workload. We correlated the cooling power with the peak temperature on the chip and discussed the efficient usage of core-migration policies in the context of the power reduction.