Performance optimization of the transient thermoelectric cooling for the temperature control of the chip working under dynamic power

Abstract

The thermoelectric cooler (TEC) operating under the transient mode showed a stronger short term cooling effect than that of the steady state mode. In this study, a chip cooling experimental setup with the chip modeled by a ceramic heater was constructed using a commercial Bi2Te3-based TEC. A transient three-dimensional numerical model was established for the system optimization. The impacts of the pulse voltage amplitude, pulse voltage trigger time, pulse voltage time span, and the power magnitude of the chip on the peak temperature of the chip were analyzed in detail. The results showed that the experimental and numerical simulations were in high agreement with an error of only 3.6 %. When a pulse voltage of 12 V was applied to the TEC, the experimental results showed that the peak temperature of the chip with a pulse power of 48 W was reduced by 15.3 °C, while the simulation results demonstrated a reduction of 15.6 °C. The increase in the pulse voltage width and the pulse thermal power resulted in a larger temperature reduction. The transient cooling effect of the TEC presented a promising solution for temperature regulation in modern chips operating under dynamic power conditions.