Advanced Thermal Interface Materials: Assembly and Integration for System in Package

Power dissipation is perhaps the greatest challenge facing modern electron devices. It has limited the performance of Si integrated circuits for nearly two decades, and is also limiting the performance of (high-power) GaN discrete devices. As such, many information technologies (ITs) have an urgent need for power dissipation solutions at the hardware level. The most feasible solution is via the device packaging, since self-heating of the device is deeply rooted in fundamental aspects of electron transport in imperfect semiconductors at normal temperatures. This packaging solution often occurs at the die attachment, whereby a thermal interface material (TIM) couples the device to the board. The interface/bulk thermal conductivity of this TIM determines the temperature rise of the device at a given operating power. Today, most TIMs rely on the thermal conductivity of metals, and are rapidly becoming a bottleneck for power dissipation in advanced ITs. This talk will discuss the limitations of metallic TIMs, and integration/characterization challenges for new materials that may extend the performance scaling of high-power devices.