Thermal Management for Future Wrist Wearable Devices

Wearable devices are evolving at a rapid pace. Many researchers are studying wireless power transfer technologies. Functions beyond current smartphone capabilities must be realized in wearable devices that are smaller than smartphones. Heat due to power consumption causes both circuit malfunctions and low-temperature burns to users. In this paper, we propose thermal management methods for future wrist wearable devices with higher performance. The methods include the reconstruction of a 3D IC, the heatspreader within a device, and the built-in heatspreader and surface fin heatsink of a belt. Our experiments with a FEM-based 3D thermal solver demonstrate that the new proposed methods can achieve 44.9% reduction in the gradient coefficients of °C /W.