Temperature-Power Consumption Relationship and Hot-Spot Migration for FPGA-Based Systems

Heat emission and temperature control in an electronic device are highly correlated with power consumption as well as to equipment’s reliability. Within this context, this chapter discusses a possible solution to restrict the processing component’s heat emission in FPGA-based systems (e.g., Cognitive Radio [CR] equipment). It also describes the implementation, on reconfigurable FPGA based circuit, of a digital thermal sensor, analyzes the applicability of local heat estimations, and empirically describes the temperature-power consumption relationship in a dynamically reconfigurable FPGA platform. Finally, discussions are conducted on the decision making issues related to the use of such sensors to enable “hot-spot” migration in CR equipment.