Cold Plate Pin-Fin Optimization for Multi-Die Systems Using Design of Experiment

摘要

In the era of “Internet of everything (IoE)”, humans are connected to everything by internet which has rapidly risen the demand for powerful mobile devices as well as data centers with high performance processors. High speed and high-quality data processing and data transfer between heterogeneous dies in one integrated system are inevitably required. 2.5D stacked integrated circuits (2.5D-SICs) with through-silicon vias (TSV), as next generation silicon technologies are capable of providing desired multi-functional performance. Both high power heterogeneous dies, and limited space in a compact system contribute to the thermal bottleneck of 2.5D-SICs. Microfluidic cooling with non-uniform pin-fin is a promising approach to provide sufficient non-uniform cooling capacity. Previous work demonstrated that pin-fin enhanced micro-gap cooling can address the heat dissipation challenge for both 2.5D and 3D-SICs. In this paper, five heat sources, including one field programmable gate array (FPGA) of 25 mmx25 mm, and four heaters, each 6 mmx6 mm, are adopted in a thermal test vehicle. Non-uniform pin-fin structures for five dies in the micro-gap cold plate have been systematically optimized by utilizing design of experiment (DoE) with full-scale computational fluid dynamics/heat transfer (CFD/HT) simulations. With the guidance of DoE, representative cases with various pin-fin structures have been simulated by CFD/HT. Optimized both pin and fin structures for dies have been proposed efficiently. These optimized structures in the cold plate for multi-die system have been verified by CFD/ HT, which have met the target temperatures of five dies with lowest pressure drop. Methods of design of experiment (DoE) and CFD/HT can be utilized together to achieve multi-component system optimization in customized ranges.