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David Fang, Filipp Akopyan, and Rajit Manohar
Thermal management is becoming increasingly important
in circuit designs with high power density. Circuits
that overheat beyond specified operating conditions may
suffer timing failures, or become damaged for various reasons,
including thermal runaway. Traditional power management
in synchronous systems often involves transitions
to different system states or modes, typically involving
changes in clock frequencies or voltage levels. However,
the self-timed nature of asynchronous circuits allows delays
to vary continuously during operation, enabling stall-free
performance-throttling. We present a novel application of a
thermally sensitive circuit to automatically regulate the performance
and power consumption of asynchronous circuits,
with minimal implementation overhead.
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