Towards Thermal Profiling in CMOS/Memristor Hybrid RRAM Architectures

In this paper, we propose a hybrid temperature sensing resistive random access memory (TSRRAM) architecture composed of traditional CMOS components and emerging memristive switching devices. The architecture enables each RRAM switching element to be used both as a memory bit and a temperature sensor. The TSRRAM is integrated into an Alpha 21364 processor as an L2 cache. Its accuracy and performance were simulated using a customized simulation framework. SPEC2000 benchmarks were used to generate thermal profiles in the Alpha processor core. Active and passive sensing mechanisms are also introduced as means for DTM algorithms to determine the thermal profile of the RRAM switching layer. The proposed architecture yielded a 2.14 K mean absolute temperature error during passive sensing, which is well within the useful range of dynamic thermal management (DTM) algorithms. Furthermore, the proposed design is shown to have only an 8 cycle performance overhead.