PACT: A SPICE-Based Parallel Compact Thermal Simulator for Fast Analysis

Mohammadamin Hajikhodaverdian, Zihao Yuan, Sherief Reda and Ayse Coskun

Abstract

Thermal analysis is crucial for designing computing systems alongside their cooling mechanisms. However, existing tools face challenges in addressing large-scale problems and long simulation times. PACT is a SPICE-based parallel thermal simulator capable of fast and accurate simulations from standard-cell to architecture levels. PACT leverages multicore processing and various solvers and can be easily extended to model a variety of cooling and integration technologies. Compared to state-of-the-art tools like COMSOL and HotSpot, PACT offers significant speedups while maintaining accuracy.