Techno-economic feasibility analysis of an extreme heat flux micro-cooler

• Published in: iScience 2023-01, Vol.26 (1), p.105812-105812, Article 105812
• Main Authors: Dede, Ercan M., Zhang, Chi, Wu, Qianying, Seyedhassantehrani, Neda, Shattique, Muhammad, Roy, Souvik, Palko, James W., Narumanchi, Sreekant, Kekelia, Bidzina, Hazra, Sougata, Goodson, Kenneth E., Giglio, Roman, Asheghi, Mehdi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: energy management; energy modeling; engineering; materials science; thermal property
• ISSN: 2589-0042; 2589-0042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105812

An estimated 70% of the electricity in the United States currently passes through power conversion electronics, and this percentage is projected to increase eventually to up to 100%. At a global scale, wide adoption of highly efficient power electronics technologies is thus anticipated to have a major impact on worldwide energy consumption. As described in this perspective, for power conversion, outstanding thermal management for semiconductor devices is one key to unlocking this potentially massive energy savings. Integrated microscale cooling has been positively identified for such thermal management of future high-heat-flux, i.e., 1 kW/cm2, wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductor devices. In this work, we connect this advanced cooling approach to the energy impact of using WBG devices and further present a techno-economic analysis to clarify the projected status of performance, manufacturing approaches, fabrication costs, and remaining barriers to the adoption of such cooling technology. [Display omitted] •Highly efficient power electronics will have a major impact on worldwide energy use•Thermal management of power devices is one key to realizing related energy savings•Techno-economic analysis is done for a near-junction extreme heat flux micro-cooler•The micro-cooler is estimated to be performance/cost competitive in the marketplace Engineering; Energy management; Energy Modeling; Materials science; Thermal property