Thermi award for 2005 "macro to nano; thermal management is the key to the future"

Over the last 25 years, thermal management of semiconductor devices has evolved into a highly sophisticated science. In the past, thermal management of typical IC packages was an 'add-on', many times an afterthought or a kludge to meet system requirements. In many cases, the device was packaged and thermal issues were worked out postproduction. (For mainframe and other specialized high-end systems, this is not the case; refer to the IBM TCM and other systems that have been in place for many years). The focus of this talk is on consumer-level electronics, and packages that go into end-user systems for the public masses such as personal computers, cell-phones, PDA's, and various forms of set-top boxes. The talk will encompass these types of devices and the evolution of cooling methods and materials, the growth of the industry and the new industries that are being created by advances in materials and processes. With the advent of 3-D and wafer level packaging new challenges in cooling, both in pure heat transfer and mechanical attributes, have driven a new era in cooling technology. Current and future miracles such as MEM's and nanotechnology are opening up completely different approaches in how thermal engineers solve problems, providing new tools and materials that can be manipulated and designed at the molecular and atomic levels. It is this new realm of materials and processes that the future of electronics depends upon. With no immediate solution in sight for the directly proportional relationship between computing power, speed, functionality and power density, heat transfer is a major key to the success of the industry and to the human evolution.