Silicon-die thermal monitoring using embedded sensor cells unit

Thermal monitoring is essential in integrated circuit (IC) and VLSI chip which are a multilayer structure and a stack of different materials. The increase of the internal temperature of the VLSI circuits can conduct to serious thermal and also thermo-mechanical problems. Due to aggressive technology scaling, VLSI integration density as well as power density increases drastically. Thermal phenomena research activities on micro-scale level are essential for SoC and MEMS-based applications. However, various measurement techniques are needed to understand the thermal behavior of VLSI chip. In particular, measurement techniques for surface temperature distributions of large VLSI systems are a highly challenging research topic. This paper presents an algorithm and the experimental result of silicon-die thermal monitoring method using embedded sensor cells unit. Sensor implementation results and analysis are also presented.