Case study: Alleviating hotspots and improving chip reliability via carbon nanotube thermal interface

The increasing power consumption of integrated circuits (ICs) enabled by technology scaling requires more efficient heat dissipation solutions to improve overall chip reliability and reduce hotspots. Thermal interface materials (TIMs) are widely employed to improve the thermal conductivity between the chip and the cooling facilities. In recent years, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been proposed as a promising TIM due to their superior thermal conductivity. Some CNT-based thermal structures for improving chip heat dissipation have been proposed, and they have demonstrated significant temperature reduction. In this paper, we present an improved CNT TIM design which includes a CNT grid and thermal vias to dissipate heat more efficiently to obtain a more uniform chip thermal profile. We present simulation-based experimental results that indicate a 32% / 25% peak temperature reduction and 48% / 22% improvement in chip reliability for two industrial processor benchmarks, showing the effectiveness of our proposed thermal structure.