Thermal measurements on flip-chipped system-on-chip packages with heat spreader integration

Amongst the cooling solutions proposed to mitigate heat hazard effects in microelectronics, heat spreaders seem to be one of the most suitable when thickness and space constraints are considered. This work proposes the use of graphite-based materials as heat spreaders for thermal management of flipchip configurations. Experimental tests and numerical simulations show a significant improvement in the thermal dissipation capabilities of the stack when adding this layer. An additional configuration with a copper heat sink added on top of the heat spreader is also studied. Results indicate a significant reduction of the peak temperature for an integrated graphite heat spreader and a reduction of the average chip temperature if the heat spreader is linked to a copper heat sink. Experimental results are then analyzed by retrosimulation and the thermal path is investigated with or without heatspreader.