Phase Change Materials for Thermal Management

Students:

• Meghavin Bhatasana (2020 - present)

Alumni

• Yash Ganatra (MS 2016)
• Zhenhuan Xu (MS 2016)
• Claire Lang (Undergraduate Assistant 2014)
• Michael Woodworth (Undergraduate Assistant 2015)
• Adrian Ruiz (Undergraduate Assistant 2016)
• Prahlad Kulkarni (MS 2018)
• Prachi Kale (MS independent study 2017-2018)
• Collier Miers (PhD 2019)

Sponsor:

Goals:

Develop a thermal management solution based on phase change materials (PCMs) to be utilized within or in contact with semiconductor packages in order to store energy generated by the package.

• Longer duration for operation of the package and/or device before the thermal limit of the package/system is reached.
• Enable locally high removal rates at hot spot locations (phase change + improved thermal conduction), allowing convenient integration and application to existing device configurations

Selected Related Publications

• "Passive Thermal Management Using Phase Change Materials: Experimental Evaluation of Thermal Resistances" at InterPACK 2015.
• "Investigation of Aluminum Foams and Graphite Fillers for Improving the Thermal Conductivity of Paraffin Wax-based Phase Change Materials" at ITHERM 2017
• Yash Ganatra's MS Thesis:  Passive thermal management using phase change materials

Two-dimensional surface temperature maps of (a-b) the bare processor die and (c-d) the die with an enclosure containing phase change material (PCM) at two time while running  a benchmaring app . At each time, the surface temperature of the PCM shown in (c-d) are significantly cooler than those of the bare die. Temperatures measured within the processor show the processor temperature is significantly lower with the PCM thermal management solution. The dashed lines in (a-b) show the outline of the ~1 cm^2 device and the enclosure containing the PCM in (c-d) is oversized compared to the die.