Webinar: Addressing the Challenges of Hyper-scaling within Data Centers with Advanced Node Embedded Sensing Fabrics

I had a chance to preview the subject webinar recently.  Yes, it’s a long title, but a very important topic. When it comes to hyper-scale data centers, there are substantial challenges associate with thermal management, power distribution and processing performance. Moortec explores approaches to these issues using their real-time embedded sensing fabrics. Benefits of this technology include enhanced reliability of operation as well as dynamic power and speed optimization. Advanced node embedded sensing fabrics are definitely worth a close look.

The webinar is kicked off and closed by Ramsay Allen, marketing manager at Moortec. Richard McPartland, technical marketing manager at Moortec, presents the bulk of the material. Richard has a long history as a product manager within the semiconductor industry. He begins the webinar by pointing out that the energy consumption for data centers today is 1-2 percent of all global electricity consumption. These numbers will go up over time, so this is clearly an area for optimization and power reduction. Richard provides a good overview of the macro trends associated with data center power consumption. You get what you measure essentially.

Richard then catalogs power challenges along three categories – thermal management, IR drops and process variation. He further analyzes the constituent parts of a large data center campus. Wonder how many semiconductor devices there are in such campus?  You’ll need to watch the webinar to find out.

Everyone knows voltage is a fundamental contributor to power consumption. Tightly control and lower the voltage and power consumption goes down. The control part requires sensing of the actual delivered voltage at critical circuits on the chip.  Here is where Moortec sensing technology starts to make a difference. When you apply small savings against the previously mentioned macro models of data center campuses, big things happen. It tuns out enhanced thermal management through distributed sensing is an excellent approach to power management.

Richard points out that advanced process nodes deliver higher logic density, and the distributed sensing approach discussed is quite effective here. The high accuracy of Moortec sensors also contributes to management of power, heat and improved performance as well. How does all this fit together?  You will need to watch the webinar to find out. I can say the results are significant and will surprise you.

The long-term benefits of precision monitoring also translates into better system reliability and uptime. This has to do with enhanced system management and predictive analytics. Richard points out that Moortec provides comprehensive, sub-system level capabilities from 40nm to 5nm. Note I covered Moortec’s distributed, real-time thermal sensing on TSMC N5 here. These capabilities deliver a fabric that can monitor thermal conditions real-time throughout the chip, along with voltage levels as well as process monitors that can determine the capabilities of each chip for individual optimization. Richard concludes with a roadmap discussion of what the future holds. You definitely need to watch this part.

The Moortec webinar, Addressing the Challenges of Hyper-scaling within Data Centers with Advanced Node Embedded Sensing Fabrics will be broadcast on Tuesday, October 13, 2020 at 10AM Pacific time. You can register for the webinar here.