Optimising integrated heat spreaders with distributed heat transfer coefficients: A case study for CPU cooling

Increasing power densities of modern CPUs has led to regions of high temperature on the semiconductor die which can lead to performance and reliability problems. In this case study, the effect of imposing a non-uniform heat transfer coefficient profile across the convective surface the CPU's integrated heat spreader was investigated as a potential enhanced cooling concept. A finite element model of a copper heat spreader of 40 × 40 mm2 area and 2.5 mm thickness with a centred 13 × 13 mm2 heat source at 100 W/cm2 heat flux was considered to approximate typical modern high-powered CPUs. Both uniform and Gaussian distributions of the heat transfer coefficient were then considered. For the latter, both single and multi-objective Genetic Algorithm optimisation were carried out for three source temperature objectives; average temperature, maximum temperature and maximum temperature difference. The analysis showed that the multi-objective optimisation strategy produced the best overall heat transfer coefficient distribution, with almost 5 K reduction in both the maximum temperature and temperature gradient across the heat source compared with a uniform heat transfer coefficient distribution.