Feasibility study of using solid state refrigeration technologies for electronic cooling

Solid state refrigeration technologies claim no moving parts and could possibly be one of the promising technologies for electronic cooling in the future. This paper focuses on the use of a thin film thermoelectric cooler (TFTEC) directly above the hotspot to provide localized cooling. We discuss different packaging concepts including placing the TFTEC within the silicon die, between the silicon die and the copper integral heat spreader (IHS), and embedded in the IHS. Estimates of the cooling performance of each concept are provided. In addition, we discuss the modeling approaches including the required TFTEC performance parameters, heat flux through the cold side of the TFTEC device and the temperature difference of the extreme outside surface of the TFTEC device, that impact the targeted hotspot cooling. We also report the requirement curves of those two parameters in order to provide the targeted hotspot temperature reduction. Modeling results show that the performance requirements depend significantly on TFTEC efficiency which would also be discussed in this paper