Design of a static TIM tester

Nowadays the quality of thermal interface materials (TIM) has a growing importance as the increasing dissipation level of ICs requires more and more sophisticated solutions to reduce the R_th along the heat-flow path. The recent approach of TIM manufacturers is to use nanoparticles as fillings in TIM materials, in order to enhance considerably the TIM thermal conductivity. On the other hand this solution raises difficulties in the characterization of these materials. Namely, the resolution of the conventional methods is not high enough to measure resistance values as low as 0.01-0.05 Kcm²/W. This is the reason why we developed static TIM tester equipment using some new concepts. The main idea behind our design is to use the capabilities of microelectronics in order to make small sized sensors both for temperature and heat flux sensing. This way it is possible to place these sensors in the closest proximity of the measured sample. The status of this work is presented in the paper.