Patent ID: 8768530

Claim:
A method for controlling the thermal behavior of a computing system having a plurality of embedded temperature sensors, comprising: accessing a predefined mathematical relationship that is stored in a memory of the system, wherein the relationship refers to temperatures of a plurality of spaced-apart points, respectively, in the system, wherein the points together define a zone of the system, the mathematical relationship to provide a representative temperature for said zone; accessing a plurality of thermal models that are stored in the memory, wherein each of the thermal models estimates the temperature of a respective one of the plurality of points that define the zone, based on temperature data from the sensors; obtaining temperature data from the sensors and estimating, using the thermal models, the temperatures of the plurality of points that define the zone; computing the representative temperature for said zone using the estimated temperatures of the plurality of points as input to the mathematical relationship; and making a decision on whether or not to change a power consuming activity limit in the system, based on the computed representative temperature, wherein the power consuming activity limit is one of: the speed of a cooling fan including whether the fan is on or off; a power supply voltage of a data processing unit; maximum transmit power of an RF antenna; clock speed of a data processing unit; whether a data processing unit is enabled or disabled; or intensity of a light source including whether the light source is on or off.