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cmos semiconductor technology has been faithfully following moore’s law for several decades now. this “law” states that the number of transistors per unit area doubles about every year [1]. this trend is likely to continue in the foreseable future.

in addition, two other technical trends will accompany the roadmap of future processors: manycore chip multiprocessors and 3d integration.  as thermal engineers, it is important to investigate the cooling options available for future 2d and 3d chip multiprocessors and to identify the limits of different cooling solutions and their implications on future processor architectures.

one particular question that needs an answer is if or when air cooling will become inadequate? since the 1980s, it has been predicted that air cooling will not suffice for future high power density ics, yet today the main method of cooling electronics remains active air cooling.

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