Phase-change immersion cooling high power light emitting diodes and heat transfer improvement

A new cooling method of ethanol direct-contact phase-change immersion cooling was proposed in the thermal management of high power light emitting diodes (LED) and the feasibility of this cooling method was investigated. The heat generated by LED was measured firstly using two types of power systems: DC power and LED driver. Then the heat dissipation performance was evaluated under different experimental conditions. The results indicate that startup process of the cooling system is quick and only 450 s is needed to reach steady-state under heat load of 42.78 W. The minimum thermal resistance of 1.233 °C/W is obtained when liquid filling ratio is 33.14%. The junction temperature of LED under different absolute pressures is much lower than the limited value of 120 °C. Baffle with total height of 140 mm, bottom space height of 20 mm and distance away from substrate surface of LED of 8 mm improves heat transfer performance best due to ethanol self-circulating in the cooling receiver. Overall, the ethanol phase-change immersion cooling is an effective way to make sure high power LED work reliably and high efficiently.     

U- and L-shaped heat pipes heat sinks for cooling electronic components employed a least square smoothing method

Heat pipes-heat sink modules transfer heat from a heat source to the heat pipes, and then to the heat sink and out into the surrounding ambient, and are suitable for cooling electronic components through a forced convection mechanism. The configuration and thermal performance of the heat sinks with inserted heat pipes were studied in the present paper. This article uses experimental procedures to investigate the thermal performance of two embedded U-shaped heat pipe and six embedded L-shaped heat pipe thermal modules with different fan speeds and heat source areas. And via the superposition method and least-square estimators in experimental data, the performance curves of individual U- and L-shaped heat pipes were derived and predicted. Results show that the lowest thermal resistances of U- and L-shaped heat pipe-heat sinks are respectively 0.246 °C/W and 0.166 °C/W given dual fans operating at 3000RPM and 30 × 30 mm² heat sources. Results for a single U-shaped heat pipe are 0.04 °C/W at 78.85 W, while sequential results for L-shaped heat pipes are 1.04 °C/W, 2.07 °C/W, 2.76 °C/W, 2.19 °C/W and 1.7 °C/W between 34 W and 40 W.     

Optimization and validation of thermal management for a RF front-end SiP based on rigid-flex substrate

This paper mainly presents a new 3D stacking RF System-in-Package (SiP) structure based on rigid-flex substrate for a micro base station, with 33 active chips integrated in a small package of 5cm × 5.5cm × 0.8cm. Total power consumption adds up to 20.1 Watt. To address thermal management and testability difficulties of this RF SiP, a thermal test package is designed with the same package structure and assembly flow, only replacing active chips with thermal test dies (TTDs). Optimization and validation of thermal management for the thermal test package is conducted. Effects of the structure, chip power distribution, and ambient temperature aspects on the thermal performance are studied. Thermal vias designed in the organic substrate provide a direct heat dissipation path from TTDs to the top heatsink, which minimizes junction temperature gap of the top substrate from 31.2 °C to 5.3 °C, and enables junction temperatures of all the chips on the face to face structure to be well below 82 °C. Chip power distribution optimization indicates placing high power RF parts on the top rigid substrate is a reasonable choice. The ambient temperature optimizes with forced air convection and cold-plate cooling method, both of which are effective methods to improve thermal performances especially for this micro base station application where environment temperature may reach more than 75 °C. The thermal management validation is performed with a thermal test vehicle. Junction temperatures are compared between finite-volume-method (FVM) simulation and thermal measurement under the natural convection condition. The accordance of simulation and measurement validates this thermal test method. Junction temperatures of typical RF chips are all below 80 °C, which shows the effectiveness of thermal management of this RF SiP.     

Passive Immersion Cooling of 3-D Stacked Dies

Three-dimensional die stacking increases integrated circuit (IC) density, providing increased capabilities and improved electrical performance on a smaller printed circuit board (PCB) footprint area. However, these advantages come at the expense of higher volumetric heat generation rates and decreased thermal and mechanical access to the die areas. Passive immersion cooling, allowing for buoyancy-driven fluid flow between stacked dies, can provide high heat transfer coefficients directly on the die surfaces, can easily accommodate a wide variety of interconnect schemes, and is scalable to any number of dies. A methodology for the optimization of immersion cooled 3-D stacked dies is presented, including the effects of confinement on natural convection and channel boiling. Optimum die spacings for both single and two phase cooling with saturated FC-72 are found to be on the order of half a millimeter for typical microelectronics geometries and to yield heat densities of 10-50 W/cm³ in natural convection and 100-500 W/cm³ in channel boiling.     

A liquid cooling solution for temperature redistribution in 3D IC architectures

The advancement of contemporary three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) technologies offers a promising solution for the insatiable demand of the consumer electronics market. The increased complexity of 3D IC design permits the execution of multiple applications at greater speeds whilst remaining within the design constraints of energy consumption, yield and time-to-market. However, the increased computing performance and compact size may introduce a thermal barrier inhibiting performance, particularly in the case where multiple logic die are stacked and co-aligned hotspots are induced. To mitigate this thermal barrier a novel integrated active thermal solution is investigated in this paper whose purpose is to alleviate hotspots in a contemporary two-die 3D IC architecture. The solution employs a series of integrated microchannels, which permits the transfer of heat, via a coolant, from lower to upper strata. This microfluidic system is driven by a series of integrated AC electrokinetic pumps embedded in the channel walls. Recent advancements in electrokinetic micropump technology have allowed greater increases in fluid velocity – to an order of mm/s – while operating within the voltage constraints of a 3D IC. Numerically qualitative and quantitative temperature distributions are presented for a 3D IC chip design both with and without microchannels for a constant heat flux on the active layer of each silicon chip. The implementation of a microchannel network is shown to alter the thermal distribution map within a 3D IC package creating hot and cold zones with variations on temperature of ?14.6 °C≤ΔT≤9.8 °C with a ΔT_max of ?6.5 °C in the silicon die stack (equivalent to a total maximum heat flux, q_max″, of approximately 112.5 W/cm²). Increasing bulk fluid velocity, within the range 1.3 mm/s≤u_avg≤13 mm/s, can vary the area of the cold zone enhancing heat transfer and reducing the temperature of the die stack without an overall temperature change in the package.     

Experimental and numerical investigation of circular minichannel heat sinks with various hydraulic diameter for electronic cooling application

This article presents the experimental thermal and hydraulic performances of heat sinks with various channel diameter for cooling electronic components. A heat sink with the length and width of 60 mm and total height of 16 mm fabricated from aluminum material. The heat sink is designed with four circular minichannels and three different values of hydraulic diameter of channel (D = 4 mm, D = 6 mm and D = 8 mm). The minichannel heat sink is heated with a uniform base heat flux. Also, numerical simulation of the problem is performed using Finite Volume Method (FVM). Comparing the experimental and numerical results show that numerical results are in a good agreement with experimental data. The variation of channel diameter affects the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of the circular shaped minichannel heat sink. The experimental results show that the increase of channel diameter reduces the pressure drop in the heat sink. Also, the minichannel heat sink with a hydraulic diameter of 4 mm has a much lower thermal resistance than the minichannel heat sinks with a hydraulic diameter of 6 mm and 8 mm. Furthermore, the optimization is done to have the maximum heat transfer coefficient and minimum of pressure drop along the heat sink.     

Liquid immersion cooling of small electronic devices

The primary purpose of this investigation was to examine liquid immersion techniques for cooling minute heat sources. The study demonstrated that nucleate boiling is an effective means of cooling larger heat sources. However, for heat sources with surface areas less than 0·01 sq. cm, nucleate boiling was found to offer very little improvement in convective heat transfer over free convection with the same liquid. In addition, nucleate boiling may introduce mechanical stresses, contamination and physical design problems. For these reasons, two alternatives to boiling (forced convection and bubble induced mixing) were also investigated which reduced (or bypassed) some of these problems.In the forced convection study, boundary layer analysis showed the convective heat transfer coefficient would increase significantly as the heat source size decreased. This was verified experimentally with two different liquids. The experiments found the convection coefficient increased by a factor of 15 when the source size was decreased from 2·00 to 0·01 sq. cm. A similar increase was noted in the free convection and bubble induced mixing experiments. In addition, with small sources both bubble induced mixing and forced convection gave significantly larger heat transfer coefficients than were practical with boiling.     

Lifetime and manufacturability of integrated power electronics

In case of battery electric cars, market data show a traditional exponential gradient of sales figures, known from other technology transitions. The worldwide installed wind and photovoltaic capacity show also an exponential gradient. Even the power density of power electronics is growing exponentially.Power electronics is a prerequisite to enable the exponential growth of power density.Requirements on power electronic packaging technologies are electric performance, thermal performance and robust design. Due to the lack of bond wires, SMD capacitors can be mounted close to semiconductors, resulting in a minimization of parasitic inductance. Thermally, the packaging technology benefits from heat spreading inside the copper leadframe and thin dielectric layers. It obtains a thermal resistance of 0.5 K/W, and there is potential to further reduce the thermal resistance by alternative dielectric material. The thermal resistance can be further reduced to at least 0.42 K/W by the construction of a double side chip cooling.A robust design can be offered by the combination of a chip copper metallization connecting to copper microvias connecting to the top copper layer, which means no difference in coefficients of thermal expansion. On the bottom side, a silver sinter layer offers a reliable connection between chip and leadframe.This paper describes production process optimizations, thermal optimization possibilities, power cycling lifetime measurements and first conductive anodic filament lifetime measurements at 1000 V DC. The outlook onto an integrated 120 A 700 V SiC MOSFET demonstrator is given.     

Thermal characteristics and fabrication of silicon sub-mount based LED package

In this paper, the cost of a light emitting diode (LED) package is lowered by using a silicon substrate as the base attached to the chip, in contrast to the conventional chip-on-board (COB) package. In addition we proposed an LED package with a new structure to promote reliability and lifespan by maximizing heat dissipation from the chip. We designed an LED package combining the advantages of COB based on conventional metal printed circuit board (PCB) and the merits of a silicon sub-mount as a substrate. When an input current 500–1000 mA was applied, the fabricated LED exhibited the light output of approximately 112 lm/W at 29 W. We also measured and compared the thermal resistance of the sub-mount package and conventional COB package. The measured thermal resistance of the sub-mount package with a reflective film of Ag and the COB package were 0.625 K/W and 1.352 K/W, respectively.     

Peak temperature reduction by optimizing power density distribution in 3D ICs with microchannel cooling

Liquid cooling with microchannels is a very attractive idea for 3D ICs which could help solving the problem of ever-increasing power dissipation due to its good cooling efficiency and potential scalability. However, this cooling method has some very different properties compared to the well-understood forced air convection. In particular, its cooling efficiency with respect to power variations in the chip is still not completely analyzed. Therefore, in this paper a thorough study of microchannel cooling efficiency as a function of intra- and interlayer power consumption variability is presented. We use a finite element method analysis to run a coupled thermo-fluidic simulation of a dedicated 3D chip model. An analytical analysis is also provided which calculates analytically the optimal power density profile along the channel. Then, steps necessary for finding the optimal power distribution for chip units are proposed. It is also shown that by appropriately managing the power density according to the proposed methodology, it is possible to significantly reduce the peak chip temperature. In particular, for a 3D chip including Intel's i7-6950X 10-core processor, a temperature reduction of 8.9 °C was achieved by a proper orientation of microchannels and another 5.8 °C reduction was obtained by optimally distributing power consumption between processor cores.     

Thermal optimization of GaN-on-Si HEMTs with plastic package

In this paper, the degradation of a GaN-on-Si based RF power amplifier is investigated by means of electrical characterization. The reliability issues identified during this work are clearly related to the high thermal resistance between the device and the heat sink, which causes gate-leakage current and output power degradation. Moreover, we have demonstrated a low cost thermal optimization approach by increasing the thermal dissipation area and reducing the device carrier thickness. Measurement results show that the saturated output power can be increased from 1 W up to 5 W without device degradation at 3.8 GHz.     

Mechanical and thermal characterization of a novel nanocomposite thermal interface material for electronic packaging

This paper presents a novel nanocomposite thermal interface material (Nano-TIM) consisting of a silver coated polyimide network and the indium matrix. One of the potential applications of this Nano-TIM is for heat dissipation in integrated circuits and electronic packaging. The shear strength of the Nano-TIM was investigated with DAGE-4000PSY shear tester. The shear strength of Nano-TIM is 4.5 MPa, which is 15% higher than that of the pure indium thermal interface material. The microstructure of cross-section and fracture surface was studied using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). SEM pictures show a uniform polymer fiber distribution and solid interface between silver coated fibers and indium matrix. The thermal fatigue resistance of the Nano-TIM was evaluated by monitoring the variation of thermal interface resistance during the thermal cycling test (− 40 to 125 °C). The thermal interface resistance was measured with a commercial xenon flash instrument after 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, and 1000 temperature cycles. The results of thermal cycling test show that Nano-TIM presented consistent reliability performance with pure indium. Furthermore, the cooling effect of Nano-TIM was demonstrated through measuring the power chip temperature in the die attached structure by using an Infrared Camera. In the test, the Nano-TIM shows a comparable cooling effect to pure indium TIM for die attach applications in electronics packaging.     

Experimental study of microrectangular groove structure covered with multi mesh layers on performance of flat plate heat pipe for LED lighting module

The paper presents a novel concept for a coronary-stent-like model to solve the problem of compactness between wick and copper mesh, which can enhance the performance of the hybrid structure flat plate heat pipe (FPHP) of LED lighting modules. The various wick structures combine axial rectangular grooved structures, manufactured in aluminum extraction, and the concept of a coronary-stent-like model, which provides a supportive copper mesh and wick structure. In this study, the performance of FPHP was experimentally measured at different inclination angles and heating areas. The axial rectangular groove structure and copper mesh layer structures have different permeabilities and capillary pumping forces, and combining these two structures could be beneficial for pumping the required operational fluid across the axial groove structure and from the condenser to the evaporator under different inclinations of the flat plate heat pipe. The exterior wall temperature of the FPHP was measured to evaluate the thermal resistance and vapor heat transfer coefficient at the condenser and evaporator for 31 × 31 and 10 × 10 mm² heating areas. The experimental result showed that the FPHP has better performance in both the junction temperature of the LED light module and the uniformity of the substructure temperature. The highest FPHP temperature was decreased by 28%, as compared to a commercial substrate. In addition, a 200 W LED light module, running for 9 h with FPHP, maintained luminance at about 2080 lux due to its low thermal resistance and high capillary force.     

Failure modes and effects analysis for high-power GaN-based light-emitting diodes package technology

In this study, nondestructive test is developed to analyze the structure failure of LED package. The relationship between thermal resistance analysis and LED package failure structure is build with T3Ster thermal transient tester and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The failure LED device with defect in the attaching layer and gap between LED chip and copper are designed advisedly. The failure factors of LED package have been measured with thermal resistance analysis and SEM cross-section images. The thermal dissipation performance of LED with defect in the attaching layer is indicated by thermal resistance analysis combined with SEM cross-section images. The blister in attaching layer results in 4.4 K/W additional thermal resistance. The gap between LED chip and copper also makes high additional thermal resistance with 8.6 K/W. Different failures of LED packages are indicated obviously using thermal transfer analysis. The LED package failure structure such as interface defect between solder and cup-shaped copper is able to forecast without destructive measurement.     

Improving cooling effectiveness by use of chamfers on the top of electronic components

A Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) study based on Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) approach is carried out to predict the mean velocity field and the heat transfer rate of an impinging jet in cross-flow configuration on a heated wall-mounted cube. Targeting an electronic cooling configuration, the aim is to investigate the effect of geometrical modification of the component on the cooling effectiveness. For the same cross flow Reynolds number Re_H = 3410, three levels of impinging jets are computed as well as a case without impinging jet that will serve as baseline case for comparison. The results from the RANS computation are compared to experimental data from published scientific literature. The validation shows qualitatively good agreement and almost all flow structures are well reproduced by the computation. In an attempt to optimize the wall heat flux over the cube surface, a new geometry is proposed without sharp corners on the top cube face. Numerical results show that with minor geometrical modification (chamfer), the fluid flow structure around the electronic component is radically transformed and the heat transfer rate can be improved. The highest cooling effectiveness improvement is realize for the highest Reynolds number ratio Re_j/Re_H = 1.5 and for the chamfer height of 4 mm.     

Impact of thinning stacked dies on the thermal resistance of bump-bonded three-dimensional integrated circuits

In three-dimensional integrated circuits (3DICs) aggressive wafer-thinning can lead to large thermal gradients, including spikes in individual device temperatures. In a non-thinned circuit, the large bulk silicon wafer on which devices are built works as a very good thermal conductor, enabling heat to diffuse laterally. In this paper we experimentally examine the thermal resistance from an active on-chip heater to the heatsink in a two-tier bump-bonded 3D stacked system. A simplified structure is introduced to enable such measurements without the time and cost associated with the full fabrication of such a system. Die thinning is seen to have a pronounced effect on the thermal response, which can adversely affect system reliability. Thinning the top tier from 725 μm to 20 μm resulted in a nearly 4 times increase in the normalized temperature rise of the heater of our test chip.     

Study on thermal performance of high power LED employing aluminum filled epoxy composite as thermal interface material

This paper elucidates the thermal behavior of an LED employing metal filled polymer matrix as thermal interface material (TIM) for an enhanced heat dissipation characteristic. Highly thermal conductive aluminum (Al) particles were incorporated in bisphenol A diglycidylether (DGEBA) epoxy matrix to study the effect of filler to polymer ratio on the thermal performance of high power LEDs. The curing behavior of DGEBA was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The dispersion nature of the Al fillers in polymer matrix was verified with Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM). The thermal performance of synthesized Al filled polymer composite as TIM was tested with an LED employing thermal transient measurement technique. Comparing the filler to polymer ratio, the rise in junction temperature for 60 wt% Al filled composite was higher by 11.1 °C than 50 wt% Al filled composite at cured state. Observed also from the structure function analysis that the total thermal resistance was 10.96 K/W higher for 60 wt% Al filled composite compared to 50 wt% Al filled composite. On the other hand, a significant rise of 9.5 °C in the junction temperature between cured and uncured samples of 50 wt% Al filled polymer TIM was observed and hence the importance of curing process of metal filled polymer composite for effective heat dissipation is discussed extensively in this work.     

Splitter plate application on the circular and square pin fin heat sinks

The main aim of this work is devoted to present a numerical analysis for studying effect of splitter on the hydro-thermal behavior of a pin fin heat sink. The concept of application of pins in the heat sinks arises from increasing the heat transfer area to reach maximum rate of heat losses in a limited space. On the other hand, flow separation behind the pin will enhance the pressure drop. To avoid or weaken the flow separation and reduce the pressure drop through the heat sink, a thin plate is located on the back of the pin. Two common pin fin heat sinks with circular and square pin shapes are compared together with and without splitters. Results showed that the use of splitter improves the hydro-thermal performance of both circular and square pins, so that the maximum improvement will be occurred for the case of Q = 10 W and V = 4.5 m/s. Results indicates that for circular pin fin heat sink with splitter pressure drop reduces by 13.4%, thermal resistance decreases by 36.8% and profit factor grows by 20%. Also for square pins the same results of 8.5% reduction for pressure drop, 23.8% reduction for thermal resistance and 14% increase in profit factor are observed. Also reliability analysis showed that for low-frequency and bipolar power transistor, the number of failure is reduced for circular and square splitter pin fin heat sinks.     

Thermal design and simulation of automotive headlamps using white LEDs

With an urgent need for energy conservation and pollution reduction, the trend of replacing traditional incandescent or fluorescent lamps with high-power LEDs is growing more and more popular. In this research, high power white LED chips are used in automotive headlamp low beam system design. Several different cooling devices are designed for headlamp cooling, the heat dissipation performances are simulated and analysed both by the finite volume method (FVM) in FloEFD and experimental measurements. The simulation and experimental results show that nature convection cooling is not an effective method for LED headlamp cooling. Heat sink combined with heat pipes technology can greatly improve the heat dissipation performance. When the liquid filled ratio is 10%, heat pipes with evaporator length 30 mm, adiabatic section length 40 mm and condenser length 50 mm have the best cooling performance. Cooling device with heat pipes placed dispersedly makes the junction temperature lower than cooling device with heat pipes isometric placed in the same plane. The liquid filled ratio of heat pipes can influence the equivalent heat transfer coefficient significantly, and the optimal filling rate is 30% in our study.     

Thermal characterization of high power LED with ceramic particles filled thermal paste for effective heat dissipation

The next generation packaging materials are expected to possess high heat dissipation capability. Understanding the needs for betterment in the field of thermal management, the present study aims at investigating the package level analysis on a high power LED. In this study, commercially available thermal paste was heavily filled with ceramic particles of aluminium nitride (AlN) and boron nitride (BN) in order to enhance the heat dissipation of the device. Different particle sizes of AlN and BN fillers were incorporated homogenously into the thermal paste and applied as a thermal interface material (TIM) for an effective system level analysis employing thermal transient measurement. It was found that AlN TIM achieve less LED junction temperature by a difference of 2.20 °C compared to BN filled TIM. Furthermore, among D₅₀ = 1170 nm, 813 nm and 758 nm, the AlN at D₅₀ = 1170 nm was found to exhibit the lowest junction temperature of 38.49 °C and the lowest total thermal resistance of 11.33 K/W compared to the other two fillers.