On-chip Peltier cooling using current pulse

Thermoelectric coolers (TECs) can address an efficient removal of localized heat for a wide range of applications such as microelectronic processors, DNA micro arrays, lasers. The efficient usage of thermoelectric devices for these applications require investigation and remedy of various obstacles such as integration of these devices with electronic package, parasitic contact resistances and utilization of appropriate current pulses and control algorithms. We investigate the effect of steady state and transient mode of operation of ultrathin TEC devices on hot spot temperature reduction on a chip through a developed computational model. The numerical model incorporates the effect of thermal and electrical contact resistances to analyze the hot spot cooling. Our analysis shows that transient pulses can be very effective to reduce the hotspot temperature in addition to the cooling achieved by the steady state current through the device. Thermal and electrical contact resistance play a very crucial role in the performance of TEC devices as high values of these resistances can completely diminish the effect of Peltier cooling. The effect of these parasitic resistances is even higher for the transient cooling of hot-spots by the pulsed current through the device compared to the steady state operation.