Development of Crossflow Manifold for Two-Phase Liquid Cooling of 3D ICs via 3D Printing

Moore’s Law of ICs develops towards an end due to the limitations in physics, materials etc. However, Moore’s Law of Packaging provides new avenues for the further development of high-power microelectronics. 3D IC is an advanced packaging technology receiving increasing attention. Heat dissipation is the bottleneck in the development of 3D ICs. We aim to develop embedded two-phase liquid cooling for 3D ICs. In this study, we develop a crossflow manifold of two-phase liquid cooling for 3D ICs. The coolant flow in 3D IC is arranged as crossflow, i.e., the coolant flow in the second chip layer is rotated by 90° to the coolant flow in the first chip layer. The manifold is designed and simulated using ANSYS software. The coolant flow inside crossflow manifold is simulated and compared with that of parallel-flow manifold. The results show that the parallel-flow manifolds provide more uniform flow distribution and less difference between the two chip inlet velocities. However, the crossflow manifold allows for individual control of the coolant flowrate for each chip layer. Therefore, the difference between the two chip inlet velocities can be adjusted by changing the coolant flowrate. Based on the simulation results, the manifolds are 3D printed using stainless steel.