Thermal and Power Characterization of Field-Programmable Gate Arrays

In this paper we propose new techniques for thermal and power characterization of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) using infrared imaging techniques. For thermal characterization, we capture the thermal emissions from the backside of an FPGA chip during operation. We analyze the captured emissions and quantify the extent of thermal gradients and hot spots in FPGAs. Given that FPGAs are fabricated with no knowledge of the potential field designs, we propose soft sensing techniques that can combine the measurements of hard sensors to accurately estimate the temperatures where no sensors are embedded. For power characterization, we propose algorithmic techniques to invert the thermal emissions from FPGAs into spatial power estimates. We demonstrate how this technique can be used to produce spatial power maps of soft processors during operation.