Computationally efficient thermal simulation with micro-fluidic cooling for 3D integration

In 3D system design, effective thermal cooling for high power density 3D stacked ICs is a crucial bottleneck. In this paper, efficient thermal simulation with micro-channel fluidic cooling and air convection boundary condition is presented. By employing the analytical model for micro-fluidic cooling, the fluid flow rate can be efficiently optimized to achieve target chip temperatures. Results demonstrating the efficiency and scalability of the method have been presented. In particular, the algorithm shows good capability of analyzing 3D stacking of chips with more than 20 micro-channels and hundreds of TSVs.