•  
• EDN Europe MAGAZINE
•  
• Free SUBSCRIPTION
• Subscription Renewal
• View Media Kit

• EDN
• EDN Australia
• EDN Asia
• EDN China
• EDN Japan

Thermoelectric platform aims to cool hot spots

Nextreme claims that its new thermoelectric platform can lower heat in specifi c areas of laser diodes, LEDs, and sensors. The microscale-thermal- and power-management-product maker recently announced its ultrahigh-packing-fraction OptoCooler module, targeting cooling and temperaturecontrol requirements for optoelectronics, electronics, medical, military, and aerospace applications employing laserdiode, LED, and advancedsensor products. In doing so, the start-up aims to solve the continuous design challenge of power leakage and hot spots, leading to uneven temperatures across a chip. Such challenges have led top industry microprocessor makers, such as Intel (www.intel.com) and Advanced Micro Devices (www.amd.com), to move to multicore processors as they increase performance and reduce footprints. If Nextreme’s thermoelectric platform is successful, it could offer an alternative route to faster, smaller next-generation processors.

According to the company, the OptoCooler removes a maximum of 420 mW of heat at 25°C ambient temperature in an active footprint of 0.55 mm2. As a result, the module can pump a heat density to 78W/cm²; at 85°C, these values increase to 610 mW and 112W/cm², respectively. “The OptoCooler module is the industry’s fi rst thermoelectric device to offer a heatpumping density in excess of 70W/cm², a tenfold increase in heat-pumping capacity over conventional TEC [thermoelectric- cooling] modules,” says Dave Koester, vice president of engineering at Nextreme. This development enables direct cooling of a laser diode on a scale that is similar to the diode itself, signifi - cantly improving efficiency and offering new, integrated packaging options, according to Koester.

Because the OptoCooler uses thin-fi lm-thermal-bump technology at its core, designers can directly integrate it in electronic and optoelectronic packaging to deliver more than 45°C of cooling for a variety of thermal-management applications. The company demonstrated embedding the module within laser-diode packages to control temperatures and maintain proper operating conditions for optimal performance. Nextreme will use the OptoCooler module as the building block for all future discrete products. The company manufactures it with the proprietary thermal-copperpillar- bump process, which Nextreme based on an established electronic-packaging approach that scales into large arrays and integrates thinfi lm-thermoelectric material into the solder-bumped interconnects that traditionally provide mechanical and electrical functions. Unlike conventional solder bumps, Nextreme’s bumps function as solid-state heat pumps on a microscale. Designers can implement the thermal-bumping process at the system, package, or wafer level and in discrete modules. OptoCooler modules are available now for $12 (1000).

Nextreme, www.nextreme.com.