2010 R&D 100 Winner
Heat generation from silicon microprocessors is highly non-uniform, both spatially and temporally, with localized high heat fluxes that vary with the workload. Site-specific and on-demand cooling is necessary, but current technologies, which rely on conduction or convection, cannot provide this capability.
The Electronics Hot Spot Cooler from RTI International (RTI), Research Triangle Park, N.C., and Nextreme Thermal Solutions Inc., Durham, N.C., provides site-specific cooling, and is the first commercial demonstration of the application of nanoscale thermoelectric materials for integrated chip refrigeration. RTI’s solid-state solution involves integrating thin (~100 µm) thermoelectric coolers fabricated from nanostructured superlattices into microprocessor and electronics packages for high heat-flux thermal management.
The superlattice materials are constructed using the concept of phonon-blocking-electron transmission and in published papers have demonstrated a thermoelectric figure-of-merit of ZT ~2.4 at 300K.
They also provide functionality that, as quantified by coefficient of performance, is the same as or better than state-of-the-art bulk thermoelectric technology, using 1/10,000 of the active material used in conventional thermoelectircs. Semiconductor performance is highly dependent on temperature, and RTI’s heat pumping device can handle a heat flux more than 1,200 W/cm2 on the active circuit side of the chip.
The chip-scale thermoelectric coolers for high-performance microelectronics can be integrated into microprocessor and electronics packages for high heat-flux thermal management.
Technology
Thermolectric cooler for microelectronics
Developers
RTI International
Nextreme Thermal Solutions Inc.
Development Team
The Electronics Hot Spot Cooler Development Team:
Rama Venkatasubramanian, RTI International
Dave Koester, Nextreme Thermal Solutions Inc.
