SOI built-in heat spreader with temperature and pressure integrated sensors for cooling optimization and in situ monitoring

This contribution presents an original solution for sensor integration into a heat spreader which is directly micromachined into the silicon substrate of the device to be cooled. Having both a high thermal conductivity coefficient and a high level of miniaturization, the vapor chamber heat spreader provides a high robustness due to the absence of any moving pumping parts. Simulation results as well as experimental results obtained with a prototype of the heat spreader with integrated temperature and pressure microsensors are presented. The results concerning device cooling optimization using the integrated sensors are highlighting the interest of this approach for accurate in situ monitoring and cooling optimization of silicon-integrated heat spreaders.