Publications

Thermal interface materials advancements for "beating the heat" in microelectronics

Emerson, John A.; Galloway, Jeffrey A.; Rae, David F.; Rightley, Michael J.

As electronic assemblies become more compact and with increased processing bandwidth, the escalating thermal energy has become more difficult to manage. The major limitation has been nonmetallic joining using poor thermal interface materials (TIM). The interfacial, versus bulk, thermal conductivity of an adhesive is the major loss mechanism and normally accounts for an order magnitude loss in conductivity per equivalent thickness. The next generation TIM requires a sophisticated understanding of material and surface sciences, heat transport at sub-micron scales and the manufacturing processes used in packaging of microelectronics and other target applications. Only when this relationship between bondline manufacturing processes, structure and contact resistance is well understood on a fundamental level, would it be possible to advance the development of miniaturized microsystems. We give the status of the study of thermal transport across these interfaces.