A data shifter-the vehicle for study of thermal-electrical interactions in integrated circuits

A simple model to study the interactions between the thermal environment and the performance of electronic circuits is devised. The model integrated circuit is composed of elementary data shifters that are arranged in a square array on a planar substrate. The circuit is cooled by convective heat transfer, where the coolant temperature is coupled with the speed of data shift. The temperature variation on the processor cases skew of the data front, and the operation of the buffer unit to correct the skew introduces a penalty in the form of extra delay time of the data shift. Numerical examples are shown for the case where the circuit is implemented by aluminum wires and cooled by the dielectric liquid FC-77.<
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