Effective Thermal Conductivity of Six Sigma’s Copper Reinforced Column Grid Array Interconnect for Ceramic Microelectronic Packages

Thermal management of flip chip style integrated circuits often relies on thermal conduction through the ceramic package and high lead solder grid array leads into the printed wiring board as the primary path for heat removal. Thermal analysis of this package configuration requires accurate characterization of the sometimes geometrically complex package-to-board interface. Given the unique structure of the Six Sigma column grid array (CGA) interconnect, a detailed finite element submodel was used to numerically derive the effective thermal conductivity with comparisons to a conventional CGA interconnect. Once an effective thermal conductivity value is obtained, the entire interconnect layer can be represented as a fictitious cuboid layer for inclusion in a more traditional “closed-form” thermal resistance calculation. This method allows the package designer a quick and robust method to evaluate initial thermal design study tradeoffs.