Thermal Management of High Power Dissipation Electronic Packages:
from Air Cooling to Liquid Cooling
H. Y . Zhang, D. Pinjala and Poi-Song Teo
Institute of Microelectronics
No. 11 Science Park Road, Science Park 11, Singapore 1 17685
DID: 65-67705438; FAX: 65-67745747; Email: hengyun@ime.a-star.edu.sg
Abstract
Performance-driven electronic packaging demands for
thermal solutions of high power dissipation such as
enhanced air cooling or, alternatively, liquid cooling
technologies. This paper reports the characterization of air-
cooled vapor chamber heat sink (VCHS) and liquid cooled
heat sinks (LCHS) for electronic packages with a targeted
power dissipation of 140W. The test vehicle flip chip plastic
BGA package (FC-PBGA) involves a thermal test chip with
a footprint of 12mmx12mm mounted on a high density
substrate of 40mm x 40mm with 1296 UOs. The VCHS for
characterization consists of a copper vapor chamber attached
to the base of an Aluminum heat sink. Five types of thermal
interface materials were used in the characterization study.
In liquid cooling testing, two Aluminum LCHSs with
microchannel width around 0.2mm were designed,
fabricated and assembled with the chip. De-ionized water
was used as coolant. Thermal measurements were conducted
and the system-level thermal analysis shows that, for the
VCHS, the overall thermal resistances ranged from 0.72 to
0.61 "CAN, and maximum power dissipations around IOOW
are achieved given allowable chip temperature rise of 60 "C.
For the liquid cooling characterization, both thermal
resistances and pressure drops were obtained at different
flowrates and the system thermal resistances ranged from
0.42 to 0.35 "CAN at pressure drop less than 0.1 bar,
indicating the achievable power dissipation of 140 to 170W.
This study reveals that there exist performance limits for the
air cooling techniques and liquid cooling technique is a
feasible candidate for cooling next-generation high-
performance electronic packages.
1. Introduction
The increasing demand for high performance and multi-
functionality electronics ICs presents great challenges to
thermal management. The power dissipation for advanced
processor chips has been projected to be 100W/cmZin the
coming years [I]. Conventionally, air cooled heat sinks with
fans have been used for low and medium power dissipaiton
scenario. With the increase in the power dissipation, the
cooling capacity can he enhanced within system constraints
through using advanced fans, large heat sink. The latest air
cooling technology can go up to 50W/cm2 [2-61. Enhanced
air cooling techniques mainly involve use of large heat sink
with optimized fin design, along with other supporting
techniques such as utilization of advanced fans with
acceptable noise level and improved thermal interface
materials (TIM), Further increase in the heat sink size is,
however, limited by factors such as spreading thermal
02003 IEEE
0-7803-8205-6/03/$17.00
resistance on the heat sink base. The adoption of vapor
chamber heat sink (VCHS) significantly reduces the
spreading thermal resistances at the heat sink base and,
correspondlyg, facilitates the use of large heat sinks [7-81.
Another altemative and promising way to handle the
large amount of power dissipation is to use liquid cooled
heat sinks (LCHS) with microchannel structure. Studies on
the liquid-cooled microchannel heat sinks only can he found
in literature, for instance, [4, 9-11], This indirect liquid
cooling technology can be used when the power dissipation
exceeds the air cooling limit, with the least modification in
the electronic system compared with other high flux thermal
management techniques such as direct liquid cooling and
refrigeration cooling. However, the study of the
microcha~lel heat sink assembled on the electronic
packages, which aims at immediate assessment of the chip
to the ambient thermal performance and the cooling loop
behavior, has not been well addressed. The characteristics of
applying LCHS into real computer systems remain to be
investigated.
This study is intended to examine the limit of the air
cooling technology and the alternative liquid cooling
technology through characterization study of VCHS and
LCHS performances. Flip chips plastic BGA (FC-PBGA)
packages have been used as test vehicles. The thermal test
chip used in this study has a footprint of 12mmx12mm,
mounted on a high density substrate of 40" x 40" with
1296 VOs. A targeted power dissipation of 140 W has been
imposed on the chip as a result of high processing speed
requirement. The VCHS for characterization study consists
of a copper vapor chamber attached to the base of an
Aluminum heat sink with an enlarged fin m a y . Five types
of thermal interface materials have been used in the
characterization study and the power inputs from the
package varied from 40W to 1OOW. For liquid cooling
characterization, miniaturized Aluminum heat sinks with
microchannels were designed, fabricated and assembled
with the thermal test vehicle. A liquid cooling test setup,
involving a pump, microchannel heat sink and remote
liquid-to-air heat exchanger, were used for experimental
measurements. This study indicates that there exist thermal
management limitations for the air cooling techniques and
that liquid cooling technique is a feasible candidate for
cooling next-generation high-performance electronic
packages.
2. Description of the test vehicle
Flip chip plastic BGA packages (FC-PBGA) have been
developed to enable 12 x 12mm flip chips of over 3 GHz on-
chip clock frequency and 140W power dissipation. The flip
620 2003 Electronics Packaging Technology Cmference
chips were attached on 2-4-2 build-up substrates with tine- in the vapor chamber greatly reduces the spreading
pitch Pb-free interconnects of 150um. The high density resistance at the heat sink base, which renders more efficient
substrates have a footprint of 40 x 40” and 1296 VOs, an heat transfer to fins far away from the heating chip and thus
array of 39x39 with 15x15 depopulated. Following the same enables heat sink designed with a large base.
substrate format, the developed thermal test vehicle is
shown in Fig.1. The thermal test chip has a footprint of 12
x 12mm, attached on a high density substrate. Four resistors
have been uniformly deposited into the four equal parts of
the chip for heating up the chip. Another four thermal
diodes have been mounted at the centers of the four comers
of the chip to measure the local temperatures and their
average was taken as the chip temperature Ti. Pb-free
material SnAgCu was used for solder humps and solder
balls to eliminate the environmental issues.

Fig. 2 VCHS used in the characterization

Fig. 1 In-house developed flip chip plastic BGA Configuration (a)

package mounted on a thermal test board.
r - -_*,- - - - I . /fan
VCHS
Thermal characterization of bare area array surface
mounted packages requires board size of 101.5 x 114.5 mm
for package footprint less than or equal to 40” and of 127
x 139.5“ for package between 40” and 65” [12].
However, there is no standard for the package integrated
with either air-cooled or liquid cooled heat sinks. In the
current project, the package had an edge length 40” and
was to be assembled with a large VCHS out of 79xI05mm,
for which a larger board size was required. Therefore the
127 x 129.5mm board was selected for the development of
the thermal test vehicle. The other board parameters such as
trace width and edge connecting followed the corresponding Configuration (b)
standard.
Fig. 3 Schematics of test sections for the air-cooled
3. Characterization of VCHS VCHS: (a) Fan at the lateral side, ahead of the heat sink.
The VCHS used in this study are shown in Fig. 2. It (b) Fan at the too of the heat sink.
consists of a Copper vapor chamber with a height of S m m
and an Aluminum conventional heat sink with a base of An axial fan with a full flowrate 16.4 CFM and stagnant
l05x79x2mm, a fin thickness of Imm and fin height of pressure 7X Pa was assembled with the VCHS to provide air
38”. The large heat sink base area was purposely selected flow. There exist two fan configurations for the heat sink
for examining the performance limit of the air cooling assembly. In Configuration (a) shown in Fig. 3, the fan is
technique. The working medium in the vapor chamber located at the lateral side of the heat sink, to blow the
evaporates when it receives the heat at the bottom from the cooling air through the heat sink. Fig. 3(b) shows the other
chip. The vapor rises up and condenses when it contacts the configuration, in which the fan is located at the top of the
top wall of the chamber, where the heat is released to the heat sink and the air is forced to impinge onto the center of
heat sink base and, eventually, exchanged to the air through
the finned structure. Such a two-phase heat transfer process

621 2003 Electronics Packaging Technology Conference

the VCHS through the fin pitches and then exit from the two
ends.
The VCHS with the fan was mounted onto the FC-
PBGA, with four spring loaded screws at the four comers of
the VCHS. Five commercially available thermal interface
materials, denoted by TIMI to TIM5, respectively, were
selected for the VCHS testing. TIMI is a type of thermal gel
material, not sensitive to the operation temperature and
power input. TIM2 is a type of polymer phase change
material with a phase change temperature of 45 "C. The last
three TIMs are made of phase change materials on
Aluminum film carriers with the same phase change
temperature around 51 "C and varying thickness of 64, 74
and 83 um, respectively.
In the experiments, the chip temperature Ti was
measured at increasing power inputs from 40 to IOOW. The
average chip temperature are obtained and the thermal
resistance relative to the surrounding air thermal resistance
can he calculated as follows
Tj -T,
R.. = _ _ _
1.'" Q
Here Tin is referred to the inlet air temperature and Q is
the heating power input. It is noted that Rj,inis not equivalent
to the thermal resistance in a real computer system due to
the preheating of the surrounding air by other components
on the hoard. The obtaining of the system thermal resistance
is to he explained in the later section of this paper.
The uncertainty of Ti was estimated to he 0.2 "C whereas
the inlet air temperature variation was around 0.2 "C. The
uncertainly in the heating power input was estimated to 1%.
Since mostly the chip temperature varied from 20 to 60 "C,
the measurement uncertainty in the thermal resistance Rj,{"
was less than 2% considering the same packaging assembly.
The assembly of the heat sink to the package has been
carried out carefully to minimize extra errors in the thermal
resistance at the interface between the chip and the heat
sink. Repeated tests have been conducted and the deviations
due to assembly were found to amount to 1.2%.
4. Description of LCHS experiments
Fig. 4 Schematics of test section for the liquid cooled
heat sink on the FC-PBGA.
The liquid cooling technology is different from the air
cooling technology in that liquid coolant is required to
circulate in a closed loop. For experimentation, a liquid-
cooled heat were developed in advance for the system
622
assembly and testing, along with a cooling elements such as
a pump, a liquid-to-air heat exchanger and a reservoir. A
detailed description of the liquid cooling loop development
is referred to [ 1 I]. Fig. 4 shows the present liquid cooling
test section, consisting of the LCHS, the cover plate, the
assembly with the package, and tubing and fittings. The
LCHS to be tested was first connected to the tubing and
fittings and then assembled onto the FC-PBGA through a
plastic cover plate.
Fig. 5 Top view of the liquid cooled heat sink, with
the enlarged micro-fin and microchannel structure
shown for visualization.
Two Aluminum LCHS with parallel microchannel
stmcture have been designed and fahricated for the
experimental characterizations. LCHSI has a fin thickness
of 0.35" and 25 channels and the other one, LCHS2, has a
fin thickness of 0.25mm and 29 channels. Both heat sinks
were made through micro end milling process with designed
channel width and depth of 0.2mm and 2 m , respectively.
Due to the high aspect ratio around 10, the designed depth
was accomplished through multiple-pass milling. The
fabricated LCHSs have very compact dimension of
25x50r2.8mm, which amounts to 1% of the VCHS in
volume. The top view of the LCHSl is shown in Fig. 5.
A piezoelectric pressure transducer was used to meausre
the pressure drops across the test section within accuracy
0.1% full scale and the flowrates were read from the
flowmeters connected in the loop with accuracy 1% full
scale. The thermal resistance can he obtained based on Eq.
( I ) except that the inlet air temperature was replaced with
the inlet liquid coolant temperature. Similar to the air
cooling experiments, the chip temperature rise and the
thermal resistance were estimated to he within 5% taking
into account the assembly tolerance.
5. Results and discussion
VCHS exueriments
The tests were first conducted for the two fan
configurations shown in Fig.3. The testing was varied by
singly adjusting the fan locations in the same assembly with
FC-PBGA and with the same interface material TIM2. Fig.
2003 Electronics Packaging Technology Conference
6 shows the chip temperature rises against the heating power
inputs for the two fan configurations. It is seen that the chip
temperature rises are proportional to the heating power
inputs. The data were fitted into linear correlations with
minor scattering within 5%. The slopes representing the
thermal resistances are found to be 0.452 and 0.457 "CiW
for the configuration (a) and (b), respectively, with
Configuration (a) gives 1% better performance on average.
Since the tests were conducted under the same testing
conditions except the fan location and the ambient
temperature, the experimental deviation was mainly due to
the ambient temperautre variation, which is around 0.3%
devaition at 60 to IOOW power inputs. Therefore, it is
believed that Configuration (a) has slightly better cooling
performance. This point is also confirmed by thermal
simulation, where Configuration (a) provide a slightly lower
therma Iresistance. In the followings, the testing results are
presented based on fan configuraiton (a).
previous study [3] shows that Configuration (b) in Fig. 3
give better thermal performance for a conventional heat sink.
Fig. 7 shows the thermal resistances based on the five
different TIMs with varying heating power inputs. It is seen
that, in most cases, the thermal resistance Rj,;.first decreases
and then achieves stable values at high power dissipations
close to IOOW, and the lowest thermal resistances are
obtained at the higher power input 80-100W, which are
around 0.42 to 0.44 " C N . The higher thermal resistances at
the lower power inputs can be due to the temperature effect
on the VCHS [7] since the boiling heat transfer is enhanced
at higher operaiton temperature. On the other hand, the
boiling limit of VCHS, which has been thought to be VCHS
capacity limit [7], was not observed based on the present
maximum power input of llOW or 76Wlcm2, suggesting
that the VCHS is feasible option for power dissipation
around 1OOW.

60
I
- :-
+ Fan at lateral side
Fan at top
I
,'r
0.4 11
Linear fit with lateral fan .>a

m,1
....... Linear (Fan at top) .ii

2'
@
/ 0.21

0.1
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2

10 4 1 Vf (IWmin)
0 30 60 90 120 (a)
Q (W

6
I .m. m
B
0
i
U
B 6o
40 ~1
._
1 1: k
0.2

0.1

0.0
j lpl, , , , 1 0.0
+
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Vf (Winin)
Q(w) (b)
Fig. 7 VCHS performance with different thermal
interface materials at different power inputs. Fig. 8 Measured thermal resistance (a) and pressure
drops (b) for liquid cooled heat sink LCHSl and
LCHSZ with TIM1 as the thermal interface material.
It should be noted that the above conclusion is based on
the present VCHS testing and may not be ture for
conventional heat sinks. In fact, in a conventional heat sink LCHS exmriments
without a vapor chamber base, the hot spot may be The flowrate effects on the thermal resistances and the
concentrated at the heat source area and a fan on the top pressure drops are shown in Fig. 8 for the LCHSI. It is seen
could manage the heat removal more efficiently. The that the thermal resistance decreases with the flowrate and
the minimum thermal resistance 0.31 k/W is obtained at

623 2003 Electronics Packaging Technology Conference

 lltrim with a pressure drop of 9200 Pa. The thermal
resistance at the reduced flowrate 0.5 ltrim is increased by
5%, but the pressure drop is increased by 63%. The lowest
flowrate around 0.1 Itrh provides a high thermal resistance
0.43 "CIW, which may not be sufficient for thermal
dissipation requirement. The thermal resistances and
pressure drops for LCHS2 are also shown in Fig. 8 for
comparison with almost the same thermal resistances and
slightly reduced pressure drops, indicating the negligible
effect for reducing the tin thickness from 0.35mm to
0.25mm.
resistance REXwas found to be around 0.06 kiW, not
sensitive to the flowrates from 0.5 and 1 Itrim. Thus the
system thermal resistance for the liquid cooling technique
can be calculated as
With the Rj,i. given in Tahel 1, the R,, values for LCHSs are
indicated in Fig. 10 at 0.5 and 1 Itrim separately.
REX T,
*-
Rj.in

Table I . Thermal resistances (unit: "C/W) for LCHSl

and LCHS2 with different thermal interface materials. Ti Tin
I Flow rate 1 TIMl I TIM2 I TIM4 I TIM5 I (a)
I Heat
T,

*-
Rj.in Rpm

Ti Tin
(b)
The effects of the TIMs were examined for LCHSl and
LCHS2 by using different TIMs and the results are listed in Fig. 9 Schematic of system thermal resistance analysis
Table 1 under 60W power input. It is seen that at the same for (a) Air cooling system and (b) liquid cooling system.
heat input, TIMl and TIM4 offer better thermal
performance. In comparison, LCHS2 has a slightly better
VCHS+TIM1
thermal performance since LCHS2 has 29 channels, higher TIM2
VCHS results. along with cost TIM3
than LCHSl with 25 channels. Again TIM 1 and TIM4 five perforamance electronics TIM4
better thermal perfomrance than TIM2. TIM5
LCHS:O.Sltrlmin
System thermal resistance analysis ..... ......
I rHS'lltrlmin
HighPefonance2003
It is noted that the above thermal measurements were HighPeformance2004
conducted at the board level. The thermal performance is - CastPerfonance2003
CastPerfomance20M
required to assess at the system level where the power
dissipation adjacent to the processor chip are to be
considered. Taking a common desktop computer system as
an example, the system-level thermal analysis is
schematically shown in Fig. 9. For the air cooling technique, I
the inlet air has been preheated by the surrounding air and EO EO 100 120 140 160 180
therefore the system thermal resistances ( k Y J should take Power dissipation (W)
into account in the preheating thermal resistance, namely,
Fig. IO. System thermal resistances for both air cooling
and liquid cooling testing with different thermal interface
materials.

It is noted that the preheating resistance RPn varies with
the system cooling configuration and operation loads. In the
calculation of the system thermal resistance KY3,the
reference R,, vauel of 0.2 "CIW from [5] is selected and
data for Rj,;. at different TIMs and power inputs are taken
from Fig. 7. The calculated RsF values are exhibited in
Fig.10 against the power dissipation values based on the
chip to ambient temperature rise of 60 OC.
For liquid cooling technique, the existence of the thermal
resistance at the liquid-to-air heat exchanger leads to the
circulating water temperature above the ambient and thus
should be considered as part of the system thermal
resistance. In the experiments, the heat exchanger thermal
We can see that the VCHS cooling techniques provide
thermal resistances between 0.72-0.61 "CIW, which is
among the lowest in the reported results for air cooling
based on a chip size as small as 12mm. The lowest thermal
resistance for VCHS is 0.61 'C/W for TIM4, capable of
dissipating around lO0W given allowable junction
temperature rise of 60 "C. It is still expected that further
optimization such as using more fins with thinner thickness
can he considered to improve the VCHS cooling
performance. Nonetheless the improvement could be
marginal, along with issues such as manufacturability. On
the other hand, the liquid cooling techniques provide
thermal resistances around 0.35-0.42 " C N , capable of
dissipating power 140-17OW.

624 2003 Electronics Packaging Technology Conference

 According to ITRS 2002, the projected power
dissipations for cost-performance and high-performance IC
chips are 81W and 150W in 2003, and 86 W a n d 160W in
2004, respectively [I]. Given the 60 “C chip temperautre rise
in these electronic systems, the thermal resistances versus
the power dissipations are illustrated in Fig.10. It is clear
that, the cost performance chips can he managed thermally
by the VCHS cooling, whereas the high performance chips
can he handled by the LCHS technology.
The present study indicates that the enhanced air-cooling,
VCHS, reaches its limit around 100 W when it is mounted
on a 12mm chip. As the power dissipation further increases,
alternative liquid cooling technology is required for
effective thermal management. The present liquid cooled
microchannel heat sinks have been demonstrated to remove
a power dissipation more than 140W or 100W/cm2 for a
single chip with a pressure drop less than 0.1 bar. Leakage
issues can be easily managed through properly designed
liquid cooling loop. The io-line flow resistance can also he
minimized for saving of the pump operation cost.
6. Conclusions
Assessment of the air cooling limit and the alternative
liquid cooling techniques has been of great interests to
electronic cooling industry. In this paper, experimental
measurements have been carried out to investigate
performances of the enhanced air cooling -VCHS
technology and and the LCHS technology for FC-PBGA
packages on high density substrates. The corresponding test
sections have been developed and the measurement results
show that the thermal resistances from the chip to the
surrounding air ranged from 0.41 to 0.52 “CMI for the
VCHS assembly, varying with the power dissipation and the
thermal interface materials, corresponding to the upper
performance limits of the air cooling. It is found that TIM4
and TIM1 give better thermal performances among the five
TIMs examined. For the liquid cooling characterization, the
thermal resistances varied from 0.29 to 0.35 “CMI for
flowrates of 0.5 and 1 Itr/m. The system-level thermal
resistance analysis shows that, given a chip to ambient
temperature rise of 60 ‘C, the maximum power dissipation
can be achieved for the VCHS, unable to meet the thermal
design target. On the other hand, the liquid cooling
technique, due to its superior thermal performance, results in
a power dissipation of 140 to 170 W or 100W/cm2 to
1 18W/cm2, successfully meeting the design requirement.
The present study demonstrates that liquid cooling
techniques by using microchannel heat sinks can he a
feasible option for power dissipation beyond the air cooling
I im it s.
Acknowledgements
The results reported in this work arise from the industrial
consortium project “Electronic Packaging Research
Consortium VI” (EPRC VI). The members include
Advanced Micro Devices (S) Pte Ltd, Dai Nippon Printing
Co., Henkel Japan Ltd, Honeywell (S) Pte Ltd, Infineon
Technologies Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, Microfab Technology (S)
Pte Ltd, Micron Semiconductor Asia Pte Ltd, Motorola
Malaysia, Philips Semiconductors B. V., ST Assembly Test
625
Services Ltd, United Test and Assembly Center Ltd, VS
Electronics Pte Ltd. The authors acknowledge the IME
packaging group and consortium members and, particularly,
Dr. Mahadevan K. Iyer, 0. K. Navas, Sharon Lim Pei Siang,
Chong Kok Chin, Dr. Ignatius Rasiah and N. M. Said for
their support and help.
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2003 Electronics Packaging Technology Conference