Finite Element Analysis of CFOAM® Compared to Metallic Heat Sinks as a Thermal Management Solution for Integrated Circuits

ABSTRACT CFOAM® offers a promising alternative to conventional aluminum or copper heat sinks for semiconductor chip cooling due to its porous, open-celled structure, which increases surface area; therefore, improving heat dissipation, despite having a lower thermal conductivity than each metal. The significantly lower density of CFOAM® provides the advantage of weight reduction in applications where mass is a critical factor. In this study, the thermal performance of a CFOAM® heat sink was compared against traditional aluminum and copper finned heat sinks using transient heat transfer analyses in Abaqus Standard 2023. For each simulation, an equivalent heat flux was applied to the chip to mimic electrical heat generation with both free and forced convection boundary conditions modeled, and the CFOAM® bonded to the chip with a thermal pad. The typical maximum operating temperature of an integrated circuit (IC) is 85° or 358.15 K [1]. Results showed that in the CFOAM® simulations, peak temperatures in the center of the IC were around 7% lower than the peak temperatures in either of the two traditional heat sink studies under natural convection with a convection coefficient of 0.005 mW/mm 2 ·K. While the performance of the metallic heat sinks improved comparatively as convection increased, the peak temperatures in the CFOAM® studies remained lower with convection coefficients less than 0.02 mW/mm 2 ·K. These findings support the hypothesis that CFOAM® heat sinks can outperform traditional heat sinks in systems with low convection due to the increased surface area and improved heat transfer efficiency. These results demonstrate that CFOAM® should be considered as an alternative material for thermal management in specialized applications, primarily where heat dissipation in low-convection environments and weight reduction are critical factors.