Louis L. Hsu

Circuit design techniques for on-chip power supply noise monitoring system

This paper describes the novel design of an on-chip noise-monitoring device, which can measure the power supply noise of each individual macro and determine the noise interference between different macros. A hierarchical noise-monitoring system is proposed to monitor and store the power supply noise information for core-based design, as part of the built-in-self-test system. The method can be further extended from system-on-chip to system-on-package to provide a complete coverage of noise testing methodology. The circuit of a properly-sized noise monitor has been simulated with the actual VDD and GND noise waveforms of a 4-GHz benchmark microprocessor to verify its functionality.

A novel VLSI technology to manufacture high-density thermoelectric cooling devices

This paper describes a novel integrated circuit technology to manufacture high-density thermoelectric devices on a semiconductor wafer. With no moving parts, a thermoelectric cooler operates quietly, allows cooling below ambient temperature, and may be used for temperature control or heating if the direction of current flow is reversed. By using a monolithic process to increase the number of thermoelectric couples, the proposed solid-state cooling technology can be combined with traditional air cooling, liquid cooling, and phase-change cooling to yield greater heat flux and provide better cooling capability.