Computing power is growing at an incredible pace, allowing machines to move beyond tools and into decision-makers shaping our future. But as these machines gain more power, they’re also getting hotter. Heat builds up inside chips due to nanometer-scale transistors switching rapidly, causing temperatures to rise within hot spots that can be tens of degrees warmer than the rest of the chip.
Researchers are working on a new solution to combat heat in transistors using diamond technology. Diamond is highly thermally conductive and electrically insulating, making it an ideal material for spreading out heat within chips. A team at Stanford University has successfully grown polycrystalline diamond coatings at low temperatures, allowing them to dilute heat like a cup of boiling water in a swimming pool.
The potential benefits are huge. In some test cases, the addition of diamond reduced device temperature by over 50°C and improved performance. Researchers predict that upcoming chipmaking technologies could make hot spots almost 10°C hotter, but diamond-based solutions could mitigate this issue.
Diamond thermal vias would grow inside micrometers-deep holes to spread heat from one chip to another in a stacked configuration. This approach has been tested in gallium nitride high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs), where channel temperatures dropped by an impressive 70°C.
For silicon computational chips, researchers are exploring thermal scaffolding – integrating diamond with silicon to create layers that spread heat efficiently. The more tiers of computing silicon in a chip, the bigger difference this makes. A proof-of-concept structure using dummy heaters and diamond heat spreaders reduced temperature by one-tenth its value without the scaffolding.
Industry collaboration is key to bringing this technology to market. Researchers are working with companies like Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, TSMC, Applied Materials, Samsung, Micron, and others to develop scalable growth processes and integration techniques.
If successful, diamond-based heat extraction could redefine thermal management across industries. This technology has the potential to enable a generation of electronics that’s no longer hindered by heat, allowing for more efficient and reliable computing systems.
Source: https://spectrum.ieee.org/diamond-thermal-conductivity