Development of a Diamond Microfluidics-Based Intra-Chip Cooling Technology for GaN

GaN on Diamond has been demonstrated to enable notable increases in RF power density without impacting High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) peak junction temperature. However, Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICs) fabricated using GaN on Diamond substrates are subject to the same packaging thermal limitations as their GaN on SiC counterparts. Therefore, efforts to exploit GaN on Diamond to achieve substantial increases in MMIC power are stymied by external packaging thermal resistances that characterize the current “remote cooling” paradigm. This paper explores an intra-chip cooling alternative to the “remote cooling” paradigm, eliminating various heat spreader, heat sink and thermal interface layers in favor of integral microfluidic cooling in close proximity to the device junction. We describe an intra-chip cooling structure comprised of GaN on Diamond with integral micro-channels fed using a Si fluid distribution manifold. This structure exploits GaN on Diamond substrate technology to support increased HEMT areal power density while employing diamond microfluidics to affect scalable, low thermal resistance die-level heat removal. Thermal-electrical-mechanical co-design of integrated circuit (IC) features is performed to optimize conjugate heat transfer performance and manage the electrical and mechanical impacts associated with the presence of fluidic cooling near the electrically active region of the device. Through this, MMICs with significantly greater RF output than typical of the current state-of-the-art (SoA), dissipating die and HEMT heat fluxes in excess of 1 kW/cm² and 30 kW/cm², respectively, can be operated with junction temperatures that support reliable operation. The modeling, simulation and micro-fabrication results presented here demonstrate the potential of diamond microfluidics-based intra-chip cooling as a means to alleviate thermal impediments to exploitation of the full electromagnetic potential of GaN.