Abstract : Heat emission and temperature control in an electronic device is known to be highly correlated to power consumption as well as to equipment's reliability. Within this context, this paper discusses a possible solution to restrict processing component's heat emission in FPGA-based system (e.g., Cognitive Radio (CR) equipment). It also describes the implementation, on reconfigurable FPGA based circuit, of a digital thermal sensor, analyzes the applicability of local heat estimations, and empirically describes the temperature-power consumption relationship in a dynamically reconfigurable FPGA platform. Finally, discussions are conducted on the decision making issues related to the use of such sensors to enable "hot-spot" migration in CR equipment.
