Patent ID: 7460932

Claim:
A computer implemented method for managing a thermal management system in an integrated circuit comprising: determining if a plurality of digital thermal sensors is indicated as faulty or functional, wherein the determining step is performed by a thermal management control state machine residing within the integrated circuit, wherein the integrated circuit is a heterogeneous multi-core processor; responsive to at least one of the plurality of digital thermal sensors being functional, monitoring a power savings mode of at least one unit within the integrated circuit associated with the functional digital thermal sensor, wherein the monitoring step is performed by the thermal management control state machine; and responsive to the at least one unit being in a power savings mode, disabling the functional digital thermal sensor, wherein the disabling step is performed by the thermal management control state machine residing within the integrated circuit, wherein disabling the functional digital thermal sensor is performed by masking off the functional digital thermal sensor, and wherein the masking off comprises: resetting a current temperature status register associated with the functional digital thermal sensor; stopping communications between the status register and the functional digital thermal sensor; and generating a signal to indicate the functional digital thermal sensor is currently masked and should not participate in thermal management tasks.