Modeling of Two-Phase Evaporative Heat Transfer in Three-Dimensional Multicavity High Performance Microprocessor Chip Stacks

Three-dimensional (3D) stacking of integrated-circuit (IC) dies increases system density and package functionality by vertically integrating two or more dies with area-array through-silicon-vias (TSVs). This reduces the length of global interconnects and the signal delay time and allows improvements in energy efficiency. However, the accumulation of heat fluxes and thermal interface resistances is a major limitation of vertically integrated packages. Scalable cooling solutions, such as two-phase interlayer cooling, will be required to extend 3D stacks beyond the most modest numbers of dies. This paper introduces a realistic 3D chip stack along with a simulation method for the heat spreading and flow distribution among the channels of the evaporators. The model includes the significant sensitivity of each channel's friction factor to vapor quality, and hence mass flow to heat flux, which characterizes parallel two-phase flows. Simulation cases explore various placements of hot spots within the stack and effects which are unique to two-phase interlayer cooling. The results show that the effect of hot spots on individual dies can be mitigated by strong interlayer heat conduction if the relative position of the hot spots is selected carefully to result in a heat load and flow which are well balanced laterally.

Two-phase operational maps, pressure drop, and heat transfer for flow boiling of R236fa in a micro-pin fin evaporator

Navid Borhani, Chiara Falsetti, Hamideh Jafarpoorchekab, Mirco Magnini, John Richard Thome

Cooling the new generation of 3D high power electronic chips is one of the leading challenges in microelectronics, as it is a key to achieve high computational performance at lower cooling system power consumption, thus reducing the operating cost. Two-phase flow boiling in two micro-pin fin heat sinks is studied here for this cooling process. Each micro-evaporator has a heated area of 1 cm(2) and contains 66 rows of cylindrical micro-pin fins with an in-line configuration and diameter, height and pitch of respectively 50 mu m,100 gm and 91.7 mu m. The fluid tested is refrigerant R236fa. Channel entrances with and without inlet restrictions are tested in order to evaluate their relative effect on the stability of the flow. The inlet restrictions consist of an extra row of micro-pin fins with a larger diameter of 100 mu m placed at the inlet of the heated area. The present study investigates operational stable and unstable flow regimes, pressure drop and heat transfer performance for the two micro-evaporators (one with and one without inlet restrictions) by coupling high speed visualization of the micro-pin fins flow area with fine resolution infrared temperature measurements of the micro-evaporator base, which yields a 2D map of local heat transfer coefficients of the whole heated area. Working conditions tested have mass flux varying from 500 kg m(-2) S-1 to 2500 kg m(-2) S-1, heat flux ranging from 20 W cm(-2) to 48 W cm(-2), and a constant outlet saturation temperature of 30.5 degrees C. In agreement with previous studies for multi-microchannel evaporators, it is here observed that inlet restrictions extend the map of stable operational regimes, in particular toward lower values of the mass flux, without any appreciable increase of the pressure drop. Unlike evaporation through parallel microchannels, the heat transfer coefficient trends and magnitudes vary dramatically with the flow conditions (mass flux and heat flux), thus suggesting that micro-pin fins have a strong impact on the two-phase flow pattern development, in particular delaying the transition to annular flow. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2017

Cooling High Heat Flux Micro-Electronic Systems using Refrigerants in High Aspect Ratio Multi-Microchannel Evaporators

Etienne Costa-Patry

Improving the energy efficiency of cooling systems can contribute to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Currently, most microelectronic applications are air-cooled. Switching to two-phase cooling systems would decrease power consumption and allow for the reuse of the extracted heat. For this type of application, multi-microchannel evaporators are thought to be well adapted. However, such devices have not been tested for a wide range of operating conditions, such that their thermal response to the high non-uniform power map typically generated by microelectronics has not been studied. This research project aims at clarifying these gray areas by investigating the behavior of the two-phase flow of different refrigerants in silicon and copper multi-microchannel evaporators under uniform, non-uniform and transient heat fluxes operating conditions. The test elements use as a heat source a pseudo-chip able to mimic the behavior of a CPU. It is formed by 35 independent sub-heaters, each having its own temperature sensor, such that 35 temperature and 35 heat flux measurements can be made simultaneously. Careful measurements of each pressure drop component (inlet, microchannels and outlet) found in the micro-evaporators showed the importance of the inlet and outlet restriction pressure losses. The overall pressure drop levels found in the copper test section were low enough to possibly be driven by a thermosyphon system. The heat transfer coefficients measured for uniform heat flux conditions were very high and typically followed a V-shape curve. The first branch was associated to the slug flow regime and the second to the annular flow regime. By tracking the minimum level of heat transfer, a transition criteria between the regimes was established, which included the effect of heat flux on the transition. Then for each branch, a different prediction method was used to form the first flow pattern-based prediction method for two-phase heat transfer in microchannels. A non-uniform heat flux creates important temperature gradients in the evaporator, such that the data reduction procedure needs to be adapted to include heat spreading within the evaporator. To do so, a robust multi-dimensional thermal conduction scheme was developed. Once these effects were taken into consideration, the local heat transfer coefficients provided by two-phase flow were found to be the same for uniform and non-uniform heat fluxes, allowing the flow pattern-based method to be extended to non-uniform heat flux conditions. Lastly, with proper control of the mass flow, transient heat flux situations were well handled by the micro-evaporators.

EPFL2011

Innovative low-mass cooling systems for the ALICE ITS Upgrade detector at CERN

Manuel Gómez Marzoa

The Phase-1 upgrade of the LHC to full design luminosity, planned for 2019 at CERN, requires the modernisation of the experiments around the accelerator. The Inner Tracking System (ITS), the innermost detector at the ALICE experiment, will be upgraded by replacing the current apparatus by new silicon pixels arranged in 7 cylindrical layers. Each layer is composed by multiple independent modules, named staves, which provide mechanical support and cooling to the chips. This thesis aims to develop and validate experimentally an ultra-lightweight cooling system for the ITS Upgrade. The moderate thermal requirements, with a nominal power density of 0.15 W/cm^2 and a maximum chip temperature of 30°C, are counterweighted by extreme low-mass restrictions, obliging to resort to lightweight, non-metallic materials, such as carbon fibre-reinforced polymers and plastics. Novel lightweight stave concepts were developed and experimentally validated, meeting thermal requirements with minimal material inventory. The proposed staves are made of thin, layered, composite high thermal conductivity carbon fibre plates, with dimensions up to 1502 × 30 mm, and innovative polyimide cooling channels, with inner diameters (IDs) ranging from 1.024 mm to 2.667 mm and thin walls. Six different stave layouts were tested with water at sub-atmospheric pressure (leak-less cooling), showing excellent cooling performances: the temperature differences between the heated surfaces and the coolant are below 7 K at 0.15 W/cm^2, with low temperature gradients. Cooling tests with evaporative C4F10 refrigerant were performed on the baseline stave prototypes, yielding similar thermal performance as with water. This indicates that the thermal resistance of conduction in the stave dominates over the convective one between the channel wall and the coolant. A two-phase coolant would display low material inventory thanks to the presence of the vapour phase, lighter than liquid. An experimental study on the two-phase coolant inventory was carried out in one stave. The results are compared with void fraction prediction methods integrated along the cooling channel length, to find the best one for calculating the material budget of the two-phase coolant. An experimental study on the two-phase pressure drop and flow boiling heat transfer in a 2.689 mm ID water-heated polyimide channel was performed, using R245fa as operating fluid. Mass fluxes ranging from 100 to 500 kg/(m^2 s^1), heat fluxes from 15 to 55 kW/m^2, vapour qualities between 0.05 and 0.80, and saturation temperatures of 35, 41 and 47°C were considered in the 300-point experimental database. The influence of the two-phase flow parameters on the mean heat transfer coefficient was analysed parametrically, being its lack of dependence on the heat flux the major finding. Finally, the results were compared with other experimental data and with prediction methods in the literature.

EPFL2016