Thermoelectric coolers for on-chip thermal management: Materials, design, and optimization

Compared with traditional active cooling methods, thermoelectric coolers are more accessible to be integrated with electronics as an effective thermal management solution due to their reliability, silence, compatibility, and controllability. Considering the rapid development of processors and chips in electronics, this work comprehensively reviews the progress of state-of-the-art on-chip thermoelectric coolers and summarizes the related fundamentals, materials, designs, and system logic. Particularly, we highlight on-chip thermoelectric coolers with self-cooling design and on-demand requirement. In the end, we point out current challenges and opportunities for future improvement of designs, performance, and applications of on-chip thermoelectric coolers.