Heat Management in Integrated Circuits

As integrated circuits get smaller and more complex, power densities are increasing, leading to more heat generation. Dealing with this heat is fast becoming the most important design bottleneck of current and future integrated circuits, where power envelopes are defined by the ability of the system to dissipate the generated heat. Thermal effects are forcing chip designers to apply conservative design margins, creating sub-optimal results. At a larger scale, cooling is the second most costly item in the electricity bills of well-designed high-performance computing and data centers, costing 30-50% of the total. Thermal monitoring and management in integrated circuits is therefore becoming increasingly important.