Abstract
Specialized ASICs, e.g., GPUs, often have a non-uniform power consumption map due to the nature of their workloads. This causes a non-uniform temperature distribution across the area of the ASIC, with the appearance of acute temperature hotspots. This disclosure describes various configurations of diamond heat spreaders that can spread the heat across the full extent of an attached heat sink or cold plate, bringing the temperature map of a semiconductor package closer to uniformity. Diamonds, having a thermal conductivity nearly an order of magnitude greater than metals, can efficiently reduce the peak hot spot temperature, reduce temperature gradients, improve silicon performance (e.g., by 100 MHz for every 10℃), support higher heat flux, etc. Per the techniques, diamond crystals, independently fabricated using industrial processes, can be deployed in various configurations in thermal contact with the heat-generating ASIC dies or semiconductor packages. The configuration can be selected based on heat dissipation requirement and the type of package.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
N/A, "Diamond Heat Spreader", Technical Disclosure Commons, (October 29, 2020)
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/3722