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DARPA: ICECool to Crack Thermal Management Barrier,
Enable Breakthrough Electronics |
This story was retrieved from the DARPA website. Neither DARPA nor any other entity
represented in the article endorses this website.
ICECool to Crack Thermal Management Barrier, Enable Breakthrough Electronics
June 07, 2012
-- New DARPA program seeks to cool chips, chip stacks from within.
 The
continued miniaturization and the increased density of components in today’s electronics have pushed heat
generation and power dissipation to unprecedented levels. Current thermal management solutions, usually involving
remote cooling, are unable to limit the temperature rise of today’s complex electronic components. Such remote
cooling solutions, where heat must be conducted away from components before rejection to the air, add considerable
weight and volume to electronic systems. The result is complex military systems that continue to grow in size and
weight due to the inefficiencies of existing thermal management hardware.
Recent advances of the DARPA
Thermal Management Technologies (TMT) program enable a paradigm shift—better thermal management. DARPA’s
Intrachip/Interchip Enhanced Cooling (ICECool) program seeks to crack the thermal management barrier and overcome
the limitations of remote cooling. ICECool will explore ‘embedded’ thermal management by bringing microfluidic
cooling inside the substrate, chip or package by including thermal management in the earliest stages of
electronics design.
“Think of current electronics thermal management methods as the cooling system in your car,” said
Avram Bar-Cohen,
DARPA program manager. “Water is pumped directly through the engine block and carries the absorbed heat through
hoses back to the radiator to be cooled. By analogy, ICECool seeks technologies that would put the cooling fluid
directly into the electronic ‘engine’. In DARPA’s case this embedded cooling comes in the form of microchannels
designed and built directly into chips, substrates and/or packages as well as research into the thermal and fluid
flow characteristics of such systems at both small and large scales.”
The ICECool Fundamentals
solicitation released today seeks proposals to research and demonstrate the microfabrication and evaporative
cooling techniques needed to implement embedded cooling. Proposals are sought for intrachip/interchip solutions
that bring microchannels, micropores, etc. into the design and fabrication of chips. Interchip solutions for chip
stacks are also sought.
“Thermal management is key for advancing Defense electronics,” said
Thomas Lee, director,
Microsystems Technology Office. “Embedded cooling may allow for smaller electronics, enabling a more mobile,
versatile force. Reduced thermal resistance would improve performance of DoD electronics and may result in
breakthrough capabilities we cannot yet envision.”
Posted 6/13/2012
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