Abstract: In one aspect, a data processing system includes a virtual temperature sensor to provide system temperature for different system configurations, and a controller coupled to the sensor to control operations of the data processing system according to the virtual temperature. The virtual temperature sensor typically derives the temperature of a particular configuration of the data processing system using mathematical models or one or more operating parameters of the data processing system. In one example, the mathematical models include a characterization table which provides the measured temperature data from various system configurations. These measurements are performed with temperature sensors positioned in ideal locations for different configuration, and are preprocessed to provide the virtual temperature computation. The characterization table also includes thermal characteristics, such as thermal time constant and thermal resistance, of the critical components at multiple thermal control states.

Abstract: A tailpulse signal generating/simulating apparatus, system, and method designed to produce electronic pulses which simulate tailpulses produced by a gamma radiation detector, including the pileup effect caused by the characteristic exponential decay of the detector pulses, and the random Poisson distribution pulse timing for radioactive materials. A digital signal process (DSP) is programmed and configured to produce digital values corresponding to pseudo-randomly selected pulse amplitudes and pseudo-randomly selected Poisson timing intervals of the tailpulses. Pulse amplitude values are exponentially decayed while outputting the digital value to a digital to analog converter (DAC). And pulse amplitudes of new pulses are added to decaying pulses to simulate the pileup effect for enhanced realism in the simulation.