Power measurements of adiabatic circuits by thermoelectric technique

Abstract

We have developed a method to measure small values of power dissipation in VLSI chips by a thermal method using a Peltier cooler as a thermometer. The temperature rise of <10μK, corresponding to a power dissipation of <1μW, could easily be measured on a chip carrier, with measurement times of a few minutes. A power dissipation of <10nW is measurable for long measurement times. The power of a simple adiabatic output buffer was measured using this method, and the dependence of power dissipation on the square of the load capacitance and frequency was verified.