Moderator, Sam Davis speaks with Dr. Paul Magill of Nextreme Thermal Solutions, Inc. to delve inside how to manage the heat in power system design.

Abstract: For the past 50 years, the thermal management industry has offered only heatsinks, fans, and thermal grease as methods for electronics thermal management. Yet as components, packages, and systems continue to shrink, we are constantly adding new functionality. The heat generated in these dense electronic systems can be quite large and can lead to a significant rise in temperatures that in turn can cause device and system-level failures. A new approach to thermal management involves embedding thermal management functionality deep inside an electronic component at the source of the heat using thin-film thermoelectric devices. Thermal bumps act as solid-state heat pumps, allowing the chip designer to add thermal management functionality locally on the surface of a chip or to another electrical component. The use of thermal bumps does not displace system-level cooling, which is still needed for rejecting heat out of the system. Rather, it introduces a fundamentally new methodology for capturing and channeling heat using thermal systems that can exhaust the heat directly outdoors, reducing the demands on cooling systems at the macro level.

Speakers

Dr. Paul Magill is the VP of Marketing and Business Development for Nextreme Thermal Solutions, Inc.  Dr. Magill has more than 20 years of experience in the electronics and optoelectronics industry with expertise in sensors and laser diode applications as well as electronics and MEMS packaging and manufacturing. Dr. Magill is an experienced entrepreneur who has a track record in founding and building technology companies including Unitive Electronics Inc., Optical Process Automation, and more recently Avo Photonics. Dr. Magill holds a BS and Ph.D. in Physics from the University of North Carolina.

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