Temperature Sensor Design in a High Volume Manufacturing 65nm CMOS Digital Process

Abstract

Thermal management (TM) allows the system architect to design a cooling solution based on real-life power consumption, not peak power. The on-die thermal sensor circuit, as the core of the TM system, monitors the on-die junction temperature (Tj). We present a novel high-linearity thermal sensor topology with built-in circuit support for correction of systematic shifts in the transfer function correction. Results obtained on the 65 nm Pentiumreg4 processor demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the design.