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Stack Aware Threshold Voltage Assignment In 3-D Multicore Designs, Koushik Chakraborty, Sanghamitra Roy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Due to the inherent nature of heat flow in 3-D integrated circuits, stacked dies exhibit a wide range of thermal characteristics. The temperature of dies progressively increases with increasing distance from the heat sink. This heterogeneous temperature profile coupled with the strong dependence of leakage on temperature and process variation plays havoc in achieving system level energy efficiency in such systems, complicating the task of power provisioning in 3-D multicores. In this paper, we address this power provisioning challenge in 3-D ICs by advocating a novel stack aware microprocessor design paradigm, where the circuit designers are aware of the intended …