27.8 A 4600 #x03BC;m2 1.5 #x00B0;C (3 #x03C3;) 0.9kS/s thermal-diffusivity temperature sensor with VCO-based readout. Quan, R., Sonmez, U., Sebastiano, F., & Makinwa, K. A. A. In 2015 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference - (ISSCC) Digest of Technical Papers, pages 1–3, February, 2015.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
Temperature sensors are widely used in microprocessors to monitor on-chip temperature gradients and hot-spots, which are known to negatively impact reliability [1-4]. Such sensors should be: 1) Small to facilitate floor planning; 2) Fast to track millisecond thermal transients and 3) Easy to trim to reduce the associated costs. Recently, it has been shown that thermal diffusivity (TD) sensors can meet these requirements [5]. TD sensors operate by digitizing the temperature-dependent delay associated with the diffusion of heat pulses through an electro-thermal filter (ETF), which, in standard CMOS, can be readily implemented as a resistive heater surrounded by a thermopile. Unlike BJT-based temperature sensors, their accuracy actually improves with CMOS scaling [6], since it is mainly limited by the accuracy of the heater/thermopile spacing, which in turn is determined by lithography. However, the readout circuitry of prior TD sensors has been based on analog phase-domain ΔΣ ADCs, which are not easily ported to low-voltage technologies, and which occupy much more area than the ETF itself [5].
@inproceedings{quan_27.8_2015,
	title = {27.8 {A} 4600 \#x03BC;m2 1.5 \#x00B0;{C} (3 \#x03C3;) 0.9kS/s thermal-diffusivity temperature sensor with {VCO}-based readout},
	doi = {10.1109/ISSCC.2015.7063139},
	abstract = {Temperature sensors are widely used in microprocessors to monitor on-chip temperature gradients and hot-spots, which are known to negatively impact reliability [1-4]. Such sensors should be: 1) Small to facilitate floor planning; 2) Fast to track millisecond thermal transients and 3) Easy to trim to reduce the associated costs. Recently, it has been shown that thermal diffusivity (TD) sensors can meet these requirements [5]. TD sensors operate by digitizing the temperature-dependent delay associated with the diffusion of heat pulses through an electro-thermal filter (ETF), which, in standard CMOS, can be readily implemented as a resistive heater surrounded by a thermopile. Unlike BJT-based temperature sensors, their accuracy actually improves with CMOS scaling [6], since it is mainly limited by the accuracy of the heater/thermopile spacing, which in turn is determined by lithography. However, the readout circuitry of prior TD sensors has been based on analog phase-domain ΔΣ ADCs, which are not easily ported to low-voltage technologies, and which occupy much more area than the ETF itself [5].},
	booktitle = {2015 {IEEE} {International} {Solid}-{State} {Circuits} {Conference} - ({ISSCC}) {Digest} of {Technical} {Papers}},
	author = {Quan, R. and Sonmez, U. and Sebastiano, F. and Makinwa, K. A. A.},
	month = feb,
	year = {2015},
	pages = {1--3}
}

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