NSF Award
0321500
This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project introduces a new reactive joining process for mounting heat sinks onto chips, chip packages and substrates. The process uses reactive multi-layer foils as local heat sources for melting solder layers, and consequently bonding the components. The foils are a new class of nano-engineered materials, in which self-propagating exothermic reactions can be ignited at room temperature with a spark. The work will focus on reactive mounting of heat sinks onto server chips, an application that is in critical need of performance improvements. Two alternatives will be considered - the reactive mounting of a copper heat sink onto a metallized heat spreader that surrounds the chip, and reactive mounting of the heat sink directly onto a metallized chip. Significant improvements in heat conduction in microelectronic devices are needed as existing approaches such as adhesives, greases and epoxies suffer a number of limitations such as poor thermal conductivity, low mechanical strength and/or susceptibility to degradation.<br/> With the decrease in the size and the increase in speed of microelectronic devices, poor heat dissipation has started to limit device performance and applications and thus has become a critical issue. The worldwide market for thermal management in microelectronic devices is about $3.7 billion/year and high-end heat-sink mounting constitutes approximately 10% of this market.
