Analytical study on a MEMS micro-cooling system for cooling of flip chips

Abstract

A MEMS micro-cooling system which comprises microchannel, micropump and pin-fin fan-sink technologies is proposed to meet the need of innovative and advanced IC cooling techniques for the microelectronics industry. An analytical study is conducted by employing a self-developed computer code. This study shows that the closed-loop MEMS micro-cooling system under the steady-state condition with water as the coolant has a capacity to remove heat flux as high as 100 W/cm2 from the flip chip into the ambient. This can be done whilst maintaining the maximum temperature on the surface of the flip chip below 100 °C. Simulation and analysis of flow and heat transfer performance on this single-phase forced convection MEMS micro-cooling system are performed in both laminar and turbulent flows. The design parameters which include the coolant inlet pressure, the geometry of the silicon microchannel, the ambient temperature as well as the variety of the aluminum pin-fin fan-sink coolers show that these variables all have significant effect on the working performance of the system. The simulation results validated this new compact and highly efficient MEMS micro-cooling system.