Title:  Microfluidic Cooling for Densely Integrated Microelectronic Systems

Committee:

Dr. Muhannad Bakir, ECE, Chair , Advisor

Dr. Arijit Raychowdhury, ECE

Dr. Albert Frazier, ECE

Dr. Oliver Brand, ECE

Dr. Yogendra Joshi, ME

Abstract:

The challenge of dissipating heat is a major barrier to continuing improvement in integrated circuit performance.  Additionally, the bottleneck for computational performance and energy has shifted from the switching of transistors for computation to the movement of data between various levels of storage and compute resources. 2.5D and 3D architectures have emerged as a solution to this interconnection problem, but these high-density architectures increase package power densities and only exacerbate the thermal challenge. This research aims to help enable the next generation of high performance computing architectures through the design, microfabrication, and characterization of microfluidic cooling technologies.  In addition to thermally characterizing microfluidic heat sink designs in passive silicon, a microfluidic heat sink has been attached to a 2.5D 14 nm FPGA and integrated into the backside of a 28 nm FPGA, where benefits in temperature, throughput, and power were characterized.