Optimisation of a microelectronic assembly package using response surface methodology

This article addressed heat conduction in microelectronics applications. ANSYS finite element design software was used to design the model, while Design Expert software was used for the response surface methodology (RSM) analysis. The components analysed were heat-sink base (HSB) thickness, thermal interface material (TIM) thickness, and chip thickness. A design of experiment comprising of 15 central composite design (CCD) for the coded levels (low (-) and high (+)) of the factors were generated. Heat flow was applied to the chip while a convective coefficient was applied to the heat-sink. The temperature solution was used to calculate the thermal resistance response for the 15 CCD experimental runs. The results from the RSM study proposed an optimal (minimization analysis) combination of 3.5 mm, 0.04 mm, and 0.75 mm, for HSB thickness, TIM thickness, and chip thickness respectively. While the optimal mean thermal resistance of 0.31052 K/W was achieved from the proposed optimal parameters. Keywords: RSM; CCD; thermal resistance; temperature; microelectronics