Design, integration and performance analysis of a lid-integral microchannel cooling module for high-power chip

Abstract

In this paper, a lid-integral silicon-based microchannel cooling module (LSMCM) for a large-sized and high-power chip was designed, fabricated, and experimentally evaluated. The silicon-based microchannel heat sink was directly attached to a thermal test vehicle by high thermal conductive thermal interface material (TIM) and assembled with the molybdenum copper alloy (Mo70Cu) manifold. Finite volume method (FVM) simulations were conducted to optimize the channels in the slit and manifold. The non-uniformity of flow velocity is 8% when the flow rate is 1 L/min. The maximum temperature difference is 4.1 °C when the heat flux is 150 W/cm2 and the flow rate is 1 L/min. Based on the simulation results, the prototype of the module was fabricated. The top slit and bottom microchannel wafers were first fabricated by deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) and then bonded by wafer-to-wafer CuSn bonding to form the microchannel heat sink. SAC305 solder paste was used to seal the manifold and the microchannel heat sink. Last, a test facility was established to test the module’s pressure drop and heat dissipation performance. The test results showed that the pressure drop is 18.3 kPa when the flow rate is 1 L/min. The thermal resistance from chip to inlet coolant is 27.1 mm2K/W and the maximum temperature difference is 6.3 °C. The average temperature rise of the thermal test chip (TTC) is 52.9 °C when the total power reaches 1200 W. Therefore, LSMCM is expected to provide high heat removal ability and be used for large-sized and high-power chip.