Automatic Generation of Microprocessor Power/Thermal Stress Benchmarks

Introduction

Microprocessor designers are interested in estimating the maximum power and maximum temperature that the chip can reach, as it helps in designing the power delivery system, packaging, cooling, and power/thermal management schemes. However, due to the lack of any standardized stress benchmarks, the current trend in the industry is to develop hand-coded synthetic "max power" benchmarks or stress marks. This is an extremely tedious and time-consuming task that requires an intimate understanding of the processor.

Benefits

• Does not require a skilled designer to create benchmarks
• Reduces the time required to design the program for creation of benchmarks
• Enables the microprocessor to exercise its maximum power/temperature
• Enables generating stress marks for cases where manually writing a stress mark is difficult because of the complex hardware-software interactions in today's high-performance microprocessors.

Market Potential/Applications

Microprocessor industry

For further information please contact

University of Texas,
Austin, USA
Website : www.otc.utexas.edu