A programmable thermal management interface circuit for PowerPC systems

A programmable thermal management interface circuit for PowerPC systems has been designed, implemented, and tested for the Integrated Thermal Manageme nt (ITEM) System [1]. Instead of worst-case design, the ITEM system approac h is to target nominal power dissipation and have the system actively monit or its thermal activity and control cooling mechanisms to ensure operation within specification. Using a suitable combination of hardware and software , the interface design yields intricate control and optimal management with little system overhead and minimum hardware requirements, as well as provi des the flexibility to support different management algorithms. This interf ace circuit was fabricated in the HP 0.5 mum single-poly 3-metal process th rough MOSIS. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.