Heat Flow Pattern and Thermal Resistance Modeling of Anisotropic Heat Spreaders

To ensure safe operating temperatures of the ever smaller heat generating electronic devices, drastic measures should be taken. Heat spreaders are used to increase surface area, by spreading the heat without necessarily transferring it to the ambient in the first place. The heat flow pattern is investigated in heat spreaders and the fundamental differences regarding how heat conducts in different materials is addressed. Isotropic materials are compared with anisotropic ones having a specifically higher in-plane thermal conductivity than through plane direction. Thermal resistance models are proposed for anisotropic and isotropic heat spreaders in compliance with the order of magnitude of dimensions used in electronics packaging. After establishing thermal resistance models for both the isotropic and anisotropic cases, numerical results are used to find a correlation for predicting thermal resistance in anisotropic heat spreaders with high anisotropy ratios.