Over the past few years, as performance has increased, functions have increased, and packaging technology has become more and more advanced, the area of the CPU has also become larger and larger. For example, the area of the top integrated heat sink (IHS) of the current Intel LGA 1851/1700 platform CPU is significantly larger than that of the past LGA 1200/1151 platform. This also makes the design and installation of integrated radiators increasingly difficult. Heat accumulation and warping will affect the heat dissipation of the CPU, which may affect performance.
According to Wccftech, Intel researchers are looking for new ways to provide more economical and effective heat dissipation for chips using advanced packaging. According to a paper published by Intel researchers, engineers in the foundry division have studied a new integrated heat sink decomposition design that not only makes chip packaging more cost-effective and easier to manufacture, but also provides better heat dissipation for high-power chips.
The new method is suitable for packaged chips with multi-layer stacks and multi-chip designs. It can reduce warpage by about 30% and the void rate of thermal interface materials by 25%. It also allows Intel to develop "super large" advanced packaged chips that cannot be manufactured by traditional methods and will not be abandoned due to excessive costs.
Intel breaks the integrated heat sink into separate simple components that can be assembled together using standard manufacturing processes. Optimized adhesives, flat sheets and improved reinforcements are also used to improve the performance of thermal interface materials. As chip designs become more complex and larger, exceeding the 7000mm2 limit, integrated heat sinks require complex stepped cavities and multiple contact areas, making processing difficult and costly. At this time, you can see the benefits of the new approach.
The new method proposed by Intel can increase package coplanarity by about 7%, and the chip surface will become flatter. This research will play a vital role in Intel's future use of its advanced process and packaging technology to develop ultra-large area packaging chips. Intel engineers are also exploring how this approach can be further applied to other specialized cooling solutions.