Apparatus and method for thermal management of a memory device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10042401-B2
Application number	US-201314090627-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 26, 2013
Priority date	Dec 16, 2005
Publication date	Aug 7, 2018
Grant date	Aug 7, 2018

Abstract

A system and method for thermal management of a memory device is described. In an embodiment, one or more thermal sensors sends a signal to a thermal control module indicating that a pre-determined temperature threshold for a memory device or devices has been reached. The thermal control module may then begin tracking memory thermals or initiate thermal management operations based on the signal and history of memory device temperatures over time.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus comprising:
an initialization control module to probe a first memory device at a memory module also having one or more second memory devices; to retrieve information for a thermal sensor at the memory module to determine temperature thresholds associated with the one or more second memory devices; to compute at least one of the temperature thresholds based on the information for the thermal sensor; and then to store the temperature thresholds within the thermal sensor; and
a thermal control module to receive a signal from the thermal sensor that indicates one of the temperature thresholds has been reached and initiate a first thermal management operation responsive to the signal.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , the information for the thermal sensor to include a location of the thermal sensor and thermal characteristics of the one or more second memory devices, the initialization control module to also determine a plurality of memory access rate limits for the one or more second memory devices based on the location of the thermal sensor and the thermal characteristics of the one or more second memory devices.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , the initialization control module to cause at least one of the plurality of memory access rate limits for the one or more second memory devices to be stored at the thermal control module.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 , a first memory access rate limit from among the memory access rate limits is used as part of the first thermal management operation initiated by the thermal control module responsive to the signal received from the thermal sensor.

5. The apparatus of claim 2 , the thermal characteristics of the one or more second memory devices comprises temperature sensitivity, thermal constants, or correlations between thermal sensor measurement and temperature of the one or more second memory devices.

6. The apparatus of claim 2 , the location of the thermal sensor is one of a stand-alone device at the memory module, embedded within the first memory device or embedded with one of the one or more second memory devices.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , comprising:
a runtime control module to receive an indication from the thermal control module that at least one of the temperature thresholds has been reached and then enable a second thermal management operation responsive to the indication from the thermal control module, the second thermal management operation including one or more of collecting temperature data, realigning thermal thresholds, enabling fans, causing the use of a different memory refresh operation speed to or within the one or more second memory devices, applying a memory access limit to the one or more second memory devices, shutting down a memory controller for the memory module or shutting down all or some of the one or more second memory devices.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 , the thermal control module responsive to the signal received from the thermal sensor to also cause the runtime control module to retrieve a plurality of temperature readings from the thermal sensor over a period of time and determine one of a plurality of memory access rate limits for the one or more second memory devices to be applied responsive to a subsequent signal received from the thermal sensor that causes the thermal control module to reinitiate the first thermal management operation.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , the first memory device comprising a non-volatile memory arranged to maintain a signal presence detect (SPD) accessible to the initialization control module via a system management bus (SMBus).

10. The apparatus of claim 1 , the one or more second memory devices comprising one or more of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), Rambus DRAM (RDRAM), static RAM (SRAM) or non-volatile memory.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 , the memory module comprising a dual in-line memory module (DIMM) or a small outline DIMM (SO-DIMM).

12. A method comprising:
retrieving, by an initialization control module, information for a thermal sensor at a memory module having one or more first memory devices and a second memory device;
computing, by the initialization control module, at least one temperature threshold value for the one or more second memory devices based on the information for the thermal sensor;
storing, by the initialization control module, the at least one temperature threshold value within the thermal sensor; and
initiating, by a thermal control module, a first thermal management operation responsive to a signal from the thermal sensor indicating the at least one temperature threshold value has been reached.

13. The method of claim 12 , the information for the thermal sensor including a location of the thermal sensor at the memory module and thermal characteristics of the one or more first memory devices.

14. The method of claim 13 , comprising:
determining a first memory access rate limit for the first one or more memory devices corresponding to the temperature threshold value based on the location of the thermal sensor and the thermal characteristics of the one or more first memory devices;
causing the first memory access rate limit to be stored at a thermal control module capable of initiating the first thermal management operation, the first memory access rate limit used as part of the first thermal management operation.

15. The method of claim 14 , comprising:
receiving a plurality of temperature measurements of the one or more first memory devices over a period of time from the thermal sensor;
determining at least a second memory access rate limit for the one or more first memory devices based on the plurality of temperature measurements; and
applying the at least second memory access rate limit to the one or more first memory devices responsive to a subsequent signal received from the thermal sensor that causes the thermal control module to reinitiate the first thermal management operation.

16. The method of claim 13 , retrieving information for the thermal sensor comprises retrieving the information from the second memory device at the memory module, the second memory device arranged to maintain an SPD that includes the location of the thermal sensor at the memory module and the thermal characteristics of the one or more first memory devices.

17. The method of claim 12 , the one or more first memory devices comprises one or more of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), Rambus DRAM (RDRAM), static RAM (SRAM) or non-volatile memory.

18. The method of claim 12 , the memory module comprising a dual in-line memory module (DIMM) or a small outline DIMM (SO-DIMM).

19. A system comprising:
a memory module having:
one or more first memory devices;
a thermal sensor; and
a second memory device, the memory module arranged to store information for the thermal sensor to monitor temperature of the one or more first memory devices;

an initialization control module to probe the first memory device, to retrieve the information for the thermal sensor, to compute temperature thresholds associated with the second memory device based on the information for the thermal sensor, to store the temperature thresholds within the thermal sensor; and
a thermal control module to receive a signal from the thermal sensor that indicates one of the temperature thresholds has been reached and initiate a first thermal management operation responsive to the signal.

20. The system of claim 19 , the information for the ther

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Wyatt David A

Classifications

• G11C5/143

  Detection of memory cassette insertion or removal; Continuity checks of supply or ground lines; Detection of supply variations, interruptions or levels (G11C5/148 takes precedence); Switching between alternative supplies (G11C5/141 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G11C5/00 Primary

  Details of stores covered by group G11C11/00 · CPC title

• G06F1/206 Primary

  comprising thermal management · CPC title