Compact Model Based Microfluidic Controller for Energy Efficient Thermal Management of Single Tier and 3D Chips

Over-cooling of electronic devices and systems results in excess energy consumption, which can be reduced by closely linking cooling requirements with actual power dissipation. A thermal model-based real-time flow rate controller for pin-fin micro channel liquid cooling for planar and 3D stacked chips was studied in this paper to optimize cooling power. A thermal compact model of single layer and two layers fin enhanced micro-channel was developed, which ran 10⁵ times faster than using CFD method, with reasonable accuracy. This was used in conjunction with a flow rate control strategy to provide the needed amount of liquid to cool the heat source to the desired temperature range.