Improvement of Thermal Environment by Thermoelectric Coolers and Numerical Optimization of Thermal Performance

Abstract

Seeking for an available thermal runaway solution is becoming one important and challenging issue in current nanometer ICs. Thermoelectric coolers (TECs) may give a solution. In this paper, a simplified power model of circuits closely associated with temperature with and without repeaters is derived. Based on the surface temperature difference and heat-flow density, an equivalent thermal resistance model for powered TECs is proposed. According to the thermal profile model, the steady-state temperature is calculated for the same chip with two different package forms. Finally, optimizations of p-n couples are performed with the purpose of obtaining the maximum coefficient of performance (COP) and minimum TECs power. As compared with the traditional flip-flop controlled-collapse-chip-connection package, the results reveal desirable conclusions that a 15.8% decrease of the chip stability temperature with the COP optimization at I =2.5 A and 11.4% steady-state power savings with the 13.2 W TEC power consumption are obtained in a 50-nm technology node. Analysis demonstrates that the maximum COP and minimum power consumed by TECs can be obtained at different optimum numbers of p-n couples, which is independent of electrical current across by TECs.