Réalisation de microcaloducs en silicium pour le refroidissement de l'électronique

Fabrication of silicon micro heat pipes for cooling electronics

¹ Centre de Thermique de Lyon, UMR CNRS 5008, INSA de Lyon
² Laboratoire Physique de la Matière, UMR CNRS 5511, INSA de Lyon
³ Institut de Microélectronique, Electromagnétisme et Photonique, UMR 5130, INP Grenoble

Abstract

In this study, micro heat pipe arrays etched into silicon wafers were investigated, for electronic cooling purposes. Micro heat pipes of triangular cross-section (230 µm width) and with liquid arteries were fabricated by wet anisotropie etching in a KOH solution. The microchannels were closed by molecular bonding of a plain wafer with the grooved one. Two test benches were developed for the micro heat pipe filling and thermal characterisation. The temperarure profile at the silicon surface was deduced from experimemal measurements and a 3D numerical simulation. The results have shown that with the artery micro heat pipe array, the effective thermal conductivity of the silicon wafer was improved by 330 %.