Heat Channeling in Extremely Thin Silicon-on-Insulator Devices: A Simulation Study

Silicon-on-insulator (SoI) devices are particularly interesting for thermal management studies as they suffer from severe self-heating because of the very low and isotropic thermal conductivity of silicon dioxide that is being used as a buried oxide (BOX) layer. La₅Ca₉Cu₂₄O₄₁ (LCCO) exhibits highly anisotropic magnon-mediated thermal conductivity while at the same time is electrically insulating. A series of simulation studies has been carried out that deal with the design of an effective thermal management solution for transistors built on extremely thin SoI wafers with an LCCO BOX layer. It is shown that a heat channeling effect is produced, which can result in a significant reduction of the transistor operating temperature, the magnitude of which depends on the thickness of the BOX layer.