Cooling technologies for high heat flux applications

The high integration and miniaturization of semi-conductors devices has enabled more than ever before tremendous gains in communication bandwidth and processing power for high end desktop computers, servers, and data/telecom equipment. Because of the increased speed in these new applications, new technologies such as system on a chip or stacked die are being used more 6equently to achieve adequate device level signal integrity. However, the byproduct of this vital progress is the high heat dissipation occurring at the device level. Adding to the complexity of this problem is the fact that in many applications design requirements impose the use of high heat dissipation components in the vicinity of other temperature sensitive components such as optical devices. Moreover, the high speed signal levels may dictate much lower functional temperature at the junction which decreases the amount of thermal margin available. Finding thermal solutions to this problem is made even more challenging by the fact that this increased heat dissipation has to be managed with the same packaging constraints provided in the 1990s. Designers are also expected to come up with solutions that are cost-effective, and that must satisfy the reliability and availability requirements of the system.