Integrated thermoelectric cooling

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10825752-B2
Application number	US-201314775487-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 18, 2013
Priority date	Jun 18, 2013
Publication date	Nov 3, 2020
Grant date	Nov 3, 2020

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure describe techniques and configurations for integrated thermoelectric cooling. In one embodiment, a cooling assembly includes a semiconductor substrate, first circuitry disposed on the semiconductor substrate and configured to generate heat when in operation and second circuitry disposed on the semiconductor substrate and configured to remove the heat by thermoelectric cooling. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An integrated circuit (IC) cooling assembly, comprising:
a semiconductor substrate;
first circuitry that includes a transistor with a channel area on the semiconductor substrate in a first layer directly coupled to the substrate, wherein the transistor is to generate heat when in operation; and
second circuitry on the semiconductor substrate in the first layer, wherein the second circuitry is to remove the heat by thermoelectric cooling, and wherein the second circuitry includes:
a fin structure
wherein the fin structure is located in the first layer directly coupled to the semiconductor substrate, and wherein the fin structure is separated from the channel area of the transistor of the first circuitry by an electrically insulative and thermally conductive material, wherein the fin structure and the channel area of the transistor contain a same semiconductor material.

2. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein:
the transistor of the first circuitry is a first transistor, and the first circuitry includes one or more additional transistor devices; and
the second circuitry includes additional thermal routing structures thermally coupled with the one or more additional transistor devices and between the one or more additional transistor devices and the semiconductor substrate.

3. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the first circuitry is to operate using a first voltage of a first voltage source and the second circuitry is to remove the heat by thermoelectric cooling using a second voltage of a second voltage source, wherein the first voltage is different from the second voltage.

4. The assembly of claim 3 , further comprising:
a first interconnect coupled with the first circuitry, wherein the first interconnect is to route the first voltage for operation of the first circuitry; and
a second interconnect coupled with the second circuitry, wherein the second interconnect is to route the second voltage for thermoelectric cooling.

5. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein:
the second circuitry is further to recover power from a current generated by heat in the second circuitry; and
the semiconductor substrate is a substrate of a system-on-chip (SoC).

6. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the first circuitry comprises a first fin structure to serve as the channel area of the transistor.

7. The assembly of claim 6 , wherein the second circuitry comprises a second fin structure thermally coupled with the first fin structure.

8. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the second circuitry comprises the fin structure.

9. An integrated circuit (IC) cooling assembly, comprising:
a semiconductor substrate;
first circuitry that includes a transistor with a channel area on the semiconductor substrate in a first layer, wherein the transistor is to generate heat when in operation; and
second circuitry on the semiconductor substrate, wherein the second circuitry is to remove the heat by thermoelectric cooling, and wherein the second circuitry includes:
a nanowire, wherein the nanowire is located in a second layer separated from the channel area of the transistor of the first circuitry by an electrically insulative and thermally conductive material; and
an electrically insulative material disposed above the semiconductor substrate to encapsulate the nanowire and the channel area of the transistor of the first circuitry.

10. The IC cooling assembly of claim 9 , wherein:
the nanowire is a second nanowire; and
the first circuitry includes a first nanowire that is thermally coupled with the second nanowire; and
the first nanowire is part of the transistor.

11. The IC cooling assembly of claim 9 , wherein:
the transistor of the first circuitry is a first transistor, and the first circuitry includes one or more additional transistor devices; and
the second circuitry includes additional thermal routing structures thermally coupled with the one or more additional transistor devices and between the one or more additional transistor devices and the semiconductor substrate.

12. The IC cooling assembly of claim 9 , wherein the first circuitry is to operate using a first voltage of a first voltage source and the second circuitry is to remove the heat by thermoelectric cooling using a second voltage of a second voltage source, wherein the first voltage is different from the second voltage.

13. The IC cooling assembly of claim 12 , further comprising:
a first interconnect coupled with the first circuitry, wherein the first interconnect is to route the first voltage for operation of the first circuitry; and
a second interconnect coupled with the second circuitry, wherein the second interconnect is to route the second voltage for thermoelectric cooling.

14. The IC cooling assembly of claim 9 , wherein:
the second circuitry is further to recover power from a current generated by heat in the second circuitry; and
the semiconductor substrate is a substrate of a system-on-chip (SoC).

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Jiang Lei
• Ramayya Edwin B
• Pantuso Daniel
• Rios Rafael
• Kuhn Kelin J
• Kim Seiyon

Classifications

• H10W90/724

  between a chip and a stacked insulating package substrate, interposer or RDL · CPC title

• H10W40/28 Primary

  comprising Peltier coolers · CPC title

• H10D84/0165

  the components including complementary IGFETs, e.g. CMOS devices · CPC title

• H10D84/85

  Complementary IGFETs, e.g. CMOS · CPC title

• H10D84/038

  using silicon technology, e.g. SiGe · CPC title