The effects of graphene-based films as heat spreaders for thermal management in electronic packaging

Graphene-based films (GBF) were fabricated using a chemical conversion process including graphene oxide (GO) preparation by use of Hummer's method, graphene oxide reduction using L-ascorbic acid (LAA), and finally film formation by vacuum filtration. GBF is considered as a candidate material for thermal management, i.e. for removing heat from hotspots in power electronic packaging, due to its high thermal conductivity. In this work, the GBF heat spreading performance in 3D TSV packaging was analysed using finite element methods (FEM) implemented in the COMSOL software. Both size effects and the influence of the thermal conductivity of the GBF heat spreader on the thermal performance of the 3D TSV package were evaluated. Furthermore, the size effects of the thermal conductive adhesive (TCA) underfill between the chip and the printed circuit board (PCB) were analysed. The results obtained are critical for proper design of graphene-based lateral heat spreaders in high power electronic packaging.