Performance and thermo-mechanical reliability of micro-channel coolers - a parametric study

In the paper we present an approach based on this principle to design reliable thermal management solutions for high power applications. Thermal and thermo-mechanical reliability are measured and calculated for a flip-chip mounted die with a hot-spot using reverse-side micro-channel water cooling as cooling concept. Hereby the methodology starts by material characterisation and consistent numerical implementation. Then a numerical parametric study as to geometrical features and interface materials is carried out by coupled fluidic-thermal analysis in order to evaluate the most promising variant for optimum thermal performance within the employed technology. For experimental verification a computer-controlled closed-loop thermal-fluidic testing set-up was constructed. Good correlation was found between measured, simulated and analytical results.