Light-Weight On-Chip Monitoring Network for Dynamic Adaptation and Calibration

• Published in: IEEE sensors journal 2012-06, Vol.12 (6), p.1736-1745
• Main Authors: Ituero, P., Lopez-Vallejo, M., Marcos, M. A. S., Osuna, C. G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aging; Calibration; complementary metal oxide semiconductor; dynamic adaptation; leakage; Monitoring; Network switching; on-chip; Radiation detectors; Studies; Synchronization; temperature; Temperature effects; Temperature measurement; Temperature sensors
• ISSN: 1530-437X; 1558-1748
• DOI: 10.1109/JSEN.2011.2176485

Current nanometer technologies suffer within-die parameter uncertainties, varying workload conditions, aging, and temperature effects that cause a serious reduction on yield and performance. In this scenario, monitoring, calibration, and dynamic adaptation become essential, demanding systems with a collection of multi purpose monitors and exposing the need for light-weight monitoring networks. This paper presents a new monitoring network paradigm able to perform an early prioritization of the information. This is achieved by the introduction of a new hierarchy level, the threshing level. Targeting it, we propose a time-domain signaling scheme over a single-wire that minimizes the network switching activity as well as the routing requirements. To validate our approach, we make a thorough analysis of the architectural trade-offs and expose two complete monitoring systems that suppose an area improvement of 40% and a power reduction of three orders of magnitude compared to previous works.