Thermal sensing method and apparatus using existing ESD devices

The present invention provides a method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for measuring the temperature of a microprocessor through the use of ESD circuitry. The present invention uses diodes and an I/O pad within ESD circuits to determine the temperature at the location of the ESD circu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors MIKI KAZUHIKO, QI JIEMING, BOERSTLER DAVID W, HAILU ESKINDER
Format Patent
LanguageEnglish
Published 14.04.2009
Subjects
CALCULATING
COMPUTING
COUNTING
ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
MEASURING
MEASURING QUANTITY OF HEAT
MEASURING TEMPERATURE
PHYSICS
TESTING
THERMALLY-SENSITIVE ELEMENTS NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
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Summary:The present invention provides a method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for measuring the temperature of a microprocessor through the use of ESD circuitry. The present invention uses diodes and an I/O pad within ESD circuits to determine the temperature at the location of the ESD circuitry. First, a current measuring device connects to a diode. A user or a computer program disables the protected component or circuitry, and subsequently applies a predetermined voltage to the I/O pad. This creates a reverse saturation current through the diode, which is measured by the current measuring device. From this current the user or a computer program determines the temperature of the microprocessor at the diode through the use of a graphical representation of diode reverse saturation current and corresponding temperature.
Bibliography:Application Number: US20050242675