Monitoring temperature is critical for both early fault detection and thermal management to limit the stress on the electronics as much as possible. TI’s space-grade temperature sensor ICs offer high accuracy with minimal design overhead.

For instance, the TMP461-SP uses the predictable temperature dependence of silicon bandgaps to achieve an accuracy better than ±0.1 °C. The device integrates several features, including excitation current generation, analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with input driver and the window comparator for the actual fault detection.

This level of integration reduces board complexity and simplifies communication via a standard I²C interface, making it easy to connect to a host FPGA or MCU.

For multi-point monitoring, the TMP9R00-SP, as shown in Figure 2-1, enables up to eight external sensor inputs. These can be connected to on-chip temperature diodes of FPGAs or ASICs, or to discrete sensors placed near thermal hotspots such as power FETs. An additional ninth sensor is integrated into the device for local measurements, enabling comprehensive thermal insight across the board.