research-article

Low-cost sensing with ring oscillator arrays for healthier reconfigurable systems

Authors:

Kenneth M. Zick,

John P. HayesAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems (TRETS), Volume 5, Issue 1

Article No.: 1, Pages 1 - 26

https://doi.org/10.1145/2133352.2133353

Published: 23 March 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Electronic systems on a chip increasingly suffer from component variation, voltage noise, thermal hotspots, and other subtle physical phenomena. Systems with reconfigurability have unique opportunities for adapting to such effects. Required, however, are low-cost, fine-grained methods for sensing physical parameters. This article presents powerful, novel approaches to online sensing, including methods for designing compact reconfigurable sensors, low-cost threshold detection, and several enhanced measurement procedures. Together, the approaches help enable systems to autonomously uncover a wealth of physical information. A highly efficient counter and improved ring oscillator are introduced, enabling an entire sensor node in just 8 Virtex-5 LUTs. We describe how variations can be measured in delay, temperature, switching-induced IR drop, and leakage-induced IR drop. We demonstrate the proposed approach with an experimental system based on a Virtex-5, instrumented with over 100 sensors at an overhead of only 1.3%. Results from thermally controlled experiments provide some surprising insights and illustrate the utility of the approach. Online sensing can help open the door to physically adaptive computing, including fine-grained power, reliability, and health management schemes for systems on a chip.

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cover image ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems

ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems Volume 5, Issue 1

March 2012

148 pages

ISSN:1936-7406

EISSN:1936-7414

DOI:10.1145/2133352

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 23 March 2012

Accepted: 01 September 2011

Revised: 01 July 2011

Received: 01 April 2011

Published in TRETS Volume 5, Issue 1

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