An Energy Efficient Time-Domain Temperature Sensor for Low-Power On-Chip Thermal Management

Author

Young-Jae An ; Kyungho Ryu ; Dong-Hoon Jung ; Seung-Han Woo ; Seong-Ook Jung

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Yonsei Univ., Seoul, South Korea

Volume

14

Issue

1

fYear

2014

fDate

Jan. 2014

Firstpage

104

Lastpage

110

Abstract

Because temperature variations significantly affect the performance and reliability of highly integrated chips, the thermal management of such chips is an important issue. In this paper, a time-domain process variation calibrated temperature sensor is proposed for on-chip thermal management. For a suitable on-chip implementation, the digitally converted temperature-dependent time signal is used to reduce the area and power consumption of the chip. The proposed temperature sensor is fabricated using a 0.13- μm CMOS technology and has an active area of 0.031 mm². Measurement results show an energy consumption of 0.67 nJ/conversion at a 430 kHz conversion rate, with 1.2 V supply voltage. Using one-point calibration, the sensing error is found to range from -0.63°C to 1.04°C over a temperature range of 20°C to 120°C.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; integrated circuit packaging; low-power electronics; temperature sensors; thermal management (packaging); CMOS technology; calibrated temperature sensor; energy efficient time domain temperature sensor; low power on-chip thermal management; size 0.13 mum; temperature 20 C to 120 C; temperature variations; time domain process variation; voltage 1.2 V; Calibration; Delays; Logic gates; Temperature measurement; Temperature sensors; Time-domain analysis; Temperature sensor; low power; one-point calibration; process variation; thermal management;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Sensors Journal, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1530-437X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSEN.2013.2280647

Filename

6589949