Thermal Driver Mediation for Pre-Boot Active Cooling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Data processing systems with hybrid thermal architectures, comprising components from thermal architectures that are only capable of passive cooling and those that provide active cooling, face challenges in communicating and providing cooling during and after the pre-boot stage, limiting their operation to below 10 Watts and preventing expansion to higher power usage.
Innovation Solution
Implementing thermal drivers that enable an embedded controller to retrieve thermal information from CPUs designed for passive cooling using enhanced serial peripheral interface tunneling, allowing active cooling techniques during and after the pre-boot stage through I2C/I3C communication protocols.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If thermal drivers are implemented to enable communication between embedded controller and CPUs designed for passive cooling, then active cooling capabilities are enabled in pre-boot and post-boot stages, but device complexity increases due to integration of multiple thermal architectures
Solution Approach 1:
A second thermal driver acts as an intermediary component that retrieves thermal information from the first thermal driver (designed for passive cooling) and provides it to the embedded controller. This intermediary enables communication between incompatible thermal architectures without requiring redesign of existing CPUs, thereby enabling active cooling while maintaining compatibility with existing passive cooling designs.
2Reliability
If hybrid thermal architectures are integrated to provide both passive and active cooling, then cooling effectiveness is improved, but communication between components during pre-boot stage fails due to driver incompatibility
Solution Approach 1:
The second thermal driver is designed to operate during the pre-boot stage before the operating system loads, enabling thermal information retrieval and fan control to be established in advance. This preliminary action ensures that active cooling is available from the earliest system operation, resolving the communication failure that would otherwise occur during the pre-boot phase.
3Reliability
If passive cooling only is used to maintain compatibility with existing thermal architectures, then device reliability is maintained, but power usage is limited to below 10 Watts
Solution Approach 1:
The hybrid thermal architecture enables the system to perform multiple cooling functions: passive cooling through throttling for compatibility with existing designs, and active cooling through fan control for higher power applications. The second thermal driver provides universal access to thermal information, allowing the system to adapt between passive and active cooling modes based on power requirements, thereby enabling power usage above 10 Watts while maintaining compatibility.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for managing cooling of a data processing system. In particular, active cooling using a fan controlled by an embedded controller is provided in a data processing system having components from a thermal architecture that is only capable of providing passive cooling through throttling of a motherboard of the data processing system. The thermal architecture is based on a passive cooling thermal architecture of a computing device without the capacity to include the fan and the embedded controller, and the motherboard is one of the components of the thermal architecture.