ECE 598 EP - Hot Chips: Atoms to Heat Sinks

Summer 2009 | Fall 2009 | Spring 2010 | Summer 2010
Official Description Subject offerings of new and developing areas of knowledge in electrical and computer engineering intended to augment the existing curriculum. See Class Schedule or departmental course information for topics and prerequisites. May be repeated in the same or separate terms if topics vary.
Hours 0 to 4 hours.
Subject Area Graduate Seminar and Thesis Research
Course Prerequisites
Course Directors Eric Pop
Description This course pursues a parallel treatment of electrical and thermal issues in modern nanoelectronics, from fundamentals to system-level issues. Topics include energy transfer through electrons and phonons, mobility and thermal conductivity, power dissipation in modern devices (CMOS, phase-change memory, nanowires, nanotubes), circuit leakage, thermal breakdown, system-level issues, thermometry, and heat sinks. Handouts are supplemented with papers from the research literature. Grading is based on homeworks, Wikipedia assignments, a final conference-level group paper, and oral presentations.
Notes Grading: Homeworks, including Wikipedia assignments (50%). Midterm, one-page conference abstracts with short (3-5 minute) in-class pitch (10%). Final, group research paper with 15 minute in-class presentation and 3-4 page journal-style write-up (40%).
Credit 3 hours
Topics
  • Introduction: Why Power Matters in Nano-Electronics
  • Electronics Overview from Silicon to Package
  • The Microscopic Origin of Macroscopic Laws:
    • Electrons and Ohm’s Law
    • Phonons and Fourier’s Law
    • The Wiedemann-Franz Relationship
    • Mobility and Thermal Conductivity
    • Conductance Quantum, Breakdown of Classical Laws
  • Low-Dimensional and Boundary effects
    • Energy Transport in Thin Films, Nanowires, Nanotubes
    • Electrical and Thermal Contacts
    • Materials Thermometry
  • Power in Electronic Devices
    • Fundamentals of Power Dissipation
    • Power Dissipation in Nanoscale Devices
    • Temperature Dependence of Device Behavior
    • Thermal Data Storage Devices
    • Device Thermometry
    • MIDTERM In-Class Presentations
  • Power in Integrated Circuits
    • Circuit View of Leakage
    • Power in Interconnects
    • Power and Energy Minimization Approaches
    • Thermal Breakdown, Electromigration, Fuses
  • Power in Electronic Systems
    • Macroscopic View of Heat Conduction
    • Useful Approximation: Shape Factors, Diffusion and Healing Lengths
    • Numerical Solution Heat Conduction
    • Heat Sinks, Thermal Interface Materials
    • Liquid and Solid Cooling Solutions (Peltier)
  • Power and Architecture
  • FINAL In-Class Presentations
Topical Prerequisities Basic knowledge of solid-state physics, transistor operation, and familiarity with Matlab (or equivalents).
Texts No textbook covers all topics. The class relies on handouts, slides, papers from the literature, and sections from several books including Nanoscale Energy Transport and Conversion by G. Chen (Oxford, 2004) and Low-power CMOS VLSI circuit design by K. Roy and S. Prasad (Wiley, 2000). These are both on reserve from the instructor. In addition, two related textbooks are fully available online:

A Heat Transfer Textbook by J. H. Lienhard
Principles of Semiconductor Devices by B. Van Zeghbroek