Reducing Thermal Hotspots in Multi-Core Processors using Core Migration Scheduling

The thermal management of integrated circuits is an increasing challenge, limiting the progression of technology, and making microchip designs complex. The research and development of thermal management has concentrated on reducing the total power consumption of microprocessors at the micro-architectural level. At this level, constraints such as power consumption and its sources are regarded highly. One of the most critical facets of power dissipation is hotspots, which are small localities with high power densities that degrade the microprocessor’s efficiency and lifetime. Current VLSI technology comprises of microprocessors with multiple cores in a single chip. Multi-core processor technology utilizes two or more independent processors in a single chip in an effort to improve performance through parallel or distributed processing. Modern computers may utilize multiples of such chips. This paper proposes migrating cores as a method to reduce thermal hotspots in multi-core microprocessors with limited thermal management options. Simulations of the multi core microprocessors were completed with the use of multi2sim, McPAT and SPEC2000 benchmarks. Hotspot by HP was utilized to convert the power measurements to temperature, as well as for layout and thermal mapping of the microchip. Dynamic scheduling of cores increased the delay by 1.4% on average, while the peak temperature was observed to reduce by 6° Celsius.