Thermal Management in Mobile Devices: Challenges and Solutions
Yin Hang Hussameddine Kabbani
Comtech Xicom Technologies
3550 Bassett Street
Santa Clara, CA 95054
Yin.hang@xicomtech.com
Abstract
Mobile devices have wide functionality nowadays. The
functionality of these devices is expected to be improved and
expanded. However, to be able to accomplish this, power
dissipation in the form of heat from major chips namely the
processor, Wi-Fi, and PMU will increase. This will impose
major thermal management challenges because the nature of
thermal solutions in mobile devices depends on different
factors such as: device dimensions (thickness), mechanical
tolerances within the device, limitations on the skin
temperature of the device, and electrical architecture. In this
paper, a state-of-the-art description of these challenges is
presented. Also, some of the considerations in the thermal
design are discussed.
Keywords
Thermal, heat transfer, mobile device, thermal
management, electronic cooling, challenges, solutions
Nomenclature
Optional listing of terms and units
1. Background
When mobile devices were first introduced to market,
they had only one major function; making phone calls. These
devices didn’t perform advanced tasks such as net browsing,
gaming, etc. Current generation of mobile devices can
perform different functions; some of these functions need a
processor. In addition to the processor, there are many
additional chips and all of them dissipate power. The need for
thermal management for these devices becomes essential but
there are some problems and issues that can affect the type
and nature of such a solution. Previous researches are
available to describe the thermal challenges for the design of
handheld devices. Jung [1] reviewed various challenges of
power and thermal management techniques/architecture for
energy-efficient smartphones, and discussed the low-power
design methodologies and considerations for hardware and
software power co-optimization. For the power management
side, he discussed the variation-aware power management
and learning-based power management and at the thermal
management side, he talked about the thermal control
techniques and the thermal modeling techniques. Finally, he
presented the solution for the HW/SW power co-
optimization. Rajiv Mongia, et al. [2] describe several of the
cooling challenges in the notebook space as well as outline
techniques for evaluating the benefit of new thermal
technologies. John D. Parry [3] described the challenges for
temperature prediction in order to enhance electronic system
reliability. He concludes that the integration of design-centric
analysis technologies is required to facilitate virtual
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qualification using the physics-of-failure based “design-fix-
build-test’ methodology for reliability prediction. In this
context thermal management is expected to continue to play a
key role.
In addition to combining the previous researches together
some of the challenges will be described in this paper such as
skin and component temperature limitations and mechanical
limitations. Below is a list of the most important challenges.
2. Major Thermal Challenges
2.1 Mechanical Stack up
The major problem that faces thermal engineer in
designing an acceptable solution for mobile devices is the
mechanical stack-up. Mobile devices are usually limited in
the z-direction. These devices don’t exceed a certain
thickness (usually less than 1cm). Usually, the z-stack up
(along thickness) consist of: display panel (consists of LCD,
touch panel, etc) and the thickness is around 4mm, mid-frame
or chassis (to give the device some mechanical rigidity) and
the thickness is around 1mm, the chip and PCB with a
thickness of around 2mm, the plastic cover (package shin)
with a thickness of around 1mm, finally there is a 1mm of air
gap kept to accommodate for mechanical tolerances. An
example of this stack up is shown in Figure 1. Thus, as it can
be seen, the thermal solution needed should be in the range of
0.5-1mm. As a result, air moving devices such as blowers or
axial fans can’t be used. Also, no heat sink can fit in this
small gap. This keeps a thermal engineer with limited
options.
2.2 Temperature Limits
To better understand the thermal solution that must be
implemented in a mobile device, the thermal limiting factors
should be studied carefully. In a mobile device, there is a set
of chips. These chips dissipate a certain amount of power
depending on the application the user is running (gaming,
browsing the net, etc.). Obviously, the junction temperature
of the chips should be maintained below a certain limit. This
limit depends on the package itself, usually the temperature
limits ranges between 85-90oC. As mentioned earlier,
because of device thickness restrictions, air moving devices
can’t be installed within the device; the only mean to transfer
the heat is by conduction to the casing. The less the
conductive thermal resistance is, the cooler the chip will be.
The heat from the chip will travel through the mechanical
stack-up until it reaches the skin or the outer cover of the
device. Keeping in mind that this device should be held with
hand, the skin should be kept below certain threshold. If this
threshold is exceeded, the equilibrium temperature of the skin
while holding this device will go beyond the thermal comfort
limit. Thermal comfort limit is usually designated as
the maximum limit that the skin can’t exceed.
46 31st SEMI-THERM Symposium
 Figure 1: Mechanical Stack Up for iPhone 3G[4]
If this limit is exceeded, the skin will experience a burning
sensation. Usually, burning sensation occurs when the device
case or skin temperature reaches 45-50oC if the casing is
made of plastic and 40-45oC if the casing is made of metal.
These two conditions, keeping the junction and skin
temperature below specs, has a dilemma built into it. On one
hand, the heat transfer path between the chip and the outer
casing of the device should be improved to keep the chip
cool. On the other hand, the more heat transferred to the
casing, the higher the outer skin temperature will be. If one of
these conditions is met then the power dissipated by the chip
should be throttled. Throttling in nature means lost
performance. Generally, the skin temperature reaches its
maximum limit before the junction, thus throttling occurs
because of skin reaching its maximum allowable temperature.
2.3 Mechanical Tolerances
Tolerances play a major role in the mechanical design for
mobile devices. These tolerances can be founded in any
mechanical design but it is projected more in these devices
because of the small form factor. These tolerances are within
the device stack up, for example between the mid frame and
the display panel. Tolerances can be a major reason to have
small air gaps in the stack up. The air in these air gaps can be
considered as stagnant and the heat is transferred by
conduction through these gaps. Air is a perfect insulator, thus,
if the air gap thickness is increased, heat from the
components will be trapped within the device and that will
lead to the overheating of all the components within the
device and this will reduce the performance of the device.
2.4 Power Sources
In mobile devices, there are different components that
contribute to the overall power dissipation. The power map
depends on the task/application the device is running. The
major power dissipating components are the processor, wifi,
PMIC, display LEDs, etc. Usually, these power sources are
placed close to each other and thus they will create a
concentrated power source. This will lead to the chips’
overheating each other and this will cause drop in
performance.
3 Types of Thermal Solutions
In order to conquer the aforementioned thermal
challenges, there are several types of thermal solutions. The
most popular one to date is placing heat spreaders in between
the high power chip and the enclosure in order to reduce the
junction and/or skin temperatures. Table 1 shows the
commonly used heat spreaders and their thermal properties.
Different from copper and aluminum, thin graphite-based
heat spreaders are a promising passive thermal solution for
hot spot elimination on enclosure surfaces of mobile devices
because of their unique material properties. Graphite has an
anisotropic crystal structure that results in different properties
in different directions as shown in Table 1. This anisotropy
can be used advantageously to both spread the heat and to
eliminate a hot spot by shielding a surface adjacent to the
heat source, as mentioned before.
Material Thermal Conductivity (W/m-k)
In-Plane Through-Plane
Copper 385 385
Graphite [5, 6] 140-1650 2-10
Aluminum 180 180
Table 1: Types of Heat Spreaders
 Yin Xiong, et al. [7] presented the thermal test and Sung-Won Moon, et al. [8] discussed various passive
analysis results of the thin graphite heat spreader placing in thermal management schemes by enhancing conduction and
mobile device to reduce the hot spot temperature. The author natural convection for a high power component in a
tested two types of thin-graphite spreader as listed in Table 2 electronic mobile device. Regarding conduction
below. The testing results showed that both the 425W/m-K enhancement, the paper tested three different concepts to
and 1000+ W/m-K graphite spreaders provide significant heat improve heat spreading over the device case: (1) placing a
spreading and hot spot reduction when attached to 1mm thick copper heat spreader between gap filler and enclosure as
ABS plate. Thermal spreading and hot spot reduction are shown in Figure 2; then using (2) thermally conductive
significantly better compared to aluminum or copper enclosure, and (3) copper heat spreader with thermally
spreaders. The 1000+ W/m-K graphite spreaders have a conductive enclosure. By adding copper heat spreader (case
thermal resistance only 9% higher than that of the 425W/m-K 1), the results showed that the thermal design power ratio
spreaders, at a total thickness of only 40% of the 425W/m-K (TDP) defined in Equation (1) and (2) was increased by 60%.
spreaders. In devices with shrinking form factors, the Using a copper heat spreader with a thermally conductive
1000+W/m-K material is clearly an attractive cooling option. enclosure further increased the TDP ratio about three times
than the base case (no copper spreader and without thermally
Graphite Spreader Assembly conductive enclosure). Regarding natural convection
Thermal enhancement, the author recommended placing the heat
Conductivity spreader exposed directly to outside ambient through
Graphite Spreader perforated skin or grille area. Adding metal fins to the heat
In Spreader
Thickness thickness spreader (to form a heat sink) will provide additional thermal
Plane Thru- Construct
(μm) (μm) benefit by enlarging heat transfer surface area as shown in
(W/m- thickness
K) Figure 3. The results showed that the use of the heat spreader
P2GA1 130 directly exposed to the ambient under the venting grille
425 2.9 110 increased power dissipation capability by about 2 times even
P2GP2A1 138
P2GA1 50 with the non-conductive enclosure, also by forming a heat
1000+ 5-6 30 sink on the copper heat spreader, the TDP ratio was further
P2GP2A1 58
Table 2: Specifications for tested spreaders [7] increased beyond 2.
Except the concept of adding heat spreaders, there are
researches presenting novel thermal solutions. F. L. Tan et al.
[9] presented the experimental study of using phase change
material (PCM) in the cooling of the mobile phone. It
investigates the thermal performance of transient charging
and discharging of mobile phone in three different situations;
making phone calls frequently, making long duration calls
and making occasional calls. The n-eicosane is chosen as the
PCM as its melting temperature of 36C lies in the operating
Figure 2: Schematic diagram of copper heat spreader
between gap filler and the system enclosure [8] temperature of mobile phones. This material has a high latent
heat of melting of 247,300 J/kg. The thermal conductivity
, and specific heat for the material are 0.15 W/m-K and 2,460
(1) J/kg-K respectively. The volume of 44mL of liquid n-
Ψ (2) eicosane is used for the experiments. The conclusion shows
that the phone is significantly cooled down during the
where, charging phase, however, the cooling rate is slower during
: maximum junction temperature among stacked dice in the discharging as heat is being stored during the charging phase.
package; This leads to the point that using PCM cooling system is only
: ambient temperature outside the cell phone; applicable for intermittent-use mobile phones and not for
P: power. continuous usage. It is important that the duration of
operation does not exceed the time for full melting the PCM.
4 Conclusions
In this paper, a light was shed on the thermal challenges
in mobile devices. These challenges are linked to the
mechanical stack up, tolerances within the device, and
temperature limits. Common solutions and thermal
management techniques were presented and discussed. It is
predicted that mobile devices will have more functionality
and abilities; this means that more power will be generated.
Figure 3: Schematic diagram of a passive thermal solution With current thermal management solutions, there is a
utilizing a heat spreader or heat sink under a venting grill or limitation on the amount of heat that can be dissipated. More
perforated enclosure skin [8] research and work is required to find new techniques and
 
materials that can help in improving and spreading the heat
within the device and in improving the transient response for
components and skin temperatures.
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