Summary of SEMI-THERM 40 Conference 

The SEMI-THERM 40 Symposium was held March 25-28, 2024 at the Double Tree Hotel in San Jose, CA. Program organization was led by General Chair Alex Ockfen (Meta), Program Chair dr. Lieven Vervecken (Diabatix), and Program Vice Chair dr. Navid Kazem (Arieca). It featured a variety of activities including technical short courses, technical sessions, invited presentations, vendor exhibits and workshops, two panel discussions and two luncheon talks. 

Short Courses 

Seven short courses were held on Monday, March 25. These courses were selected to provide learning opportunities for individuals ranging from those who are new to thermal design to those who are highly experienced. These courses were included: 

• “Semiconductor Packing and Thermals: Upcoming Challenges”, taught by Dr. Kyle Arrington of Intel. 

• “Navigating Thermal and Reliability Challenges in Chip Components for Automotive High-Performance Compute Systems”, taught by Dr. Fen Chen of Cruise LLS. 

• “Fundamentals and Applications of Machine Learning in Thermal Management and Heat Transfer Technologies”, taught by Professor Van P. Carey of UC Berkeley and Professor Alanna Cooney of San Francisco State University. 

• “Passive Two-Phase Cooling: Pulsating Heat Pipes and Loop Thermosyphon”, taught by Dr. John R. Thome of JJ Cooling Innovation. 

• “Thermal Challenges and Opportunities of Advanced Packages and Microelectronics Systems. Figure of Merit and Applications”, taught by Dr. Victor Chiriac of Global Cooling Technology Group and Alex Ockfen of Meta.  

• “Direct to Chip Liquid Cooling: Single Phase Water and Two-Phase Refrigerant Cooling with Pumped and Passive Systems”, taught by Professor Alfonso Ortega of Villanova University and Dr. Luca Amalfi of Seguente Inc.  

• “Transient Thermal Analysis Using Linear Superposition”, taught by Roger Stout, professional engineer retired. 

Technical Conference 

Held from Tuesday, March 26 to Thursday, March 28, the technical conference featured 26 presentations across seven tracks and eight sessions: 

• Consumer Electronics 

• Data Center Cooling 

• Testing and Measurement Methods 

• CFD / Numerical Methods 

• Thermal Interface Materials 

• Emerging Technologies 

• Two Phase Cooling 

The technical program also included three invited presentations by industry experts in thermal management: 

• Tim Shedd, of Dell, delivered the Keynote presentation on “Driving Sustainable Scaling of Compute to 2023”, which explored the key elements of trends, standards, and sustainability in the realm of data centers until 2030 and beyond.  

• Wendy Luiten, of WLC, was recognized for winning the SEMI-THERM 40 Thermi Award.  Her presentation “Electronics Cooling Design and Modelling 1984 – 2024” gave her perspective on her thermal engineering journey (so far). 

• Ross Wilcoxon, of Collins Aerospace, presented “Apollo: The Dawn of Semiconductor Thermal Management” during a special session on the fourth day of the event. 

Awards and Recognition 

Bonnie Crystall and Walter Schuch were recognized for winning the SEMI-THERM 40 Hall of Fame Award. Bonnie and Walter, along with Bernie Siegal, laid the foundation for SEMI-THERM in 1984 as its founders. In her speech, Bonnie fondly recalled the early days of SEMI-THERM and expressed gratitude for its growth over the past 40 years. She highlighted the importance of community and collaboration in advancing thermal management.   

The Best Paper Award was given to “Simulation of Solder Fatigue Effects on Typical BGA Package due to Material and Temperature Variations” by Jim Petroski of Design by Analysis Technical Consulting. 

Other technical papers recognized included: 

• “Investigation of Flow Restrictors for Rack Level Two-Phase Cooling under Nonuniform Heating” by Serdar Ozguc, Qingyang Wang, Akshith Narayanan, and Richard W. Bonner III of Accelsius,  

• “A Thermal Performance Characterization Method for Thin Vapor Chambers by Photonics Technologies”, by Kuang-Yu Hsu, Wei-Keng Lin, Yi-Jing Chu, Ming-Hsien Hsaio, and Chiao-Jung Tien of T-Global Technology Co.  This paper has been adapted as an article in this issue of Electronics Cooling Magazine. 

The Harvey Rosten Award, which is sponsored by Siemens Digital Industries Software, is presented at SEMI-THERM. This year’s winner was “Applicability of JESD51-14 to Clip-bounded, Discrete Power Devices”, Szilárd Zsigmond Szőke and Henrik Sebők. The paper was presented at the 2023 29th International Workshop on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Systems (THERMINIC). 

Vendor Exhibits and Workshops 

Thirty-eight companies participated, showcasing a variety of thermal management products and services, including heat sinks, thermal interface materials, heat pipes, vapor chambers, fluid connectors, air-movers, and advanced materials. Other exhibitors featured tools for thermal simulation and testing, thermal consulting, a university consortium and, of course, Electronics Cooling Magazine.  In addition to the booths in the exhibit hall, several vendors also gave Vendor Workshops in which they provided detailed information on their products in a more formal presentation format. 

Other SEMI-THERM 40 Activities Included: 

• In the panel discussion “Artificial Intelligence and its Implications for Thermal Engineers; Driving the Thermal Demand” invited speakers provided their thoughts on the role of AI for thermal engineers. The panel was moderated by Navid Kazem (Arieca) and included Padam Jain (NVIDIA), Kyle Arrington (Intel), Nader Nikfar (Qualcomm) and Tim Shedd (Dell) as panelists. 

• In the follow-up panel discussion “Artificial Intelligence and its Implications for Thermal Engineers; Providing, Using, and Powering New Design Tools” invited speakers continued the discussion on the role of AI for thermal engineers. The panel was moderated by Alex Ockfen (Meta) and included Lieven Vervecken (Diabatix), Professor Van Carey (UC Berkeley), Cheng Chen (Meta) and Mehdi Abarham (Ansys) as panelists. 

• Invited speakers gave informational and entertaining luncheon presentations on the first two days of the Symposium. On Tuesday March 26, Ken Joyce, independent executive advisor to Brewer Science, Inc., focused on key economic and commercial considerations on domestic packing and test in his presentation entitled “U.S. Domestic Packaging and Test – The Difficulty and the Opportunity”. On Wednesday March 27, Sarah da Silva Andrade, Marketing Engineer of Diabatix, talked about the role of social media in promoting scientific research and the importance of digital communication. 

About SEMI-THERM 

SEMI-THERM, or the Semiconductor Thermal Measurement, Modeling, and Management Symposium, is an annual international conference dedicated to the thermal management and characterization of electronic components and systems. The first SEMI-THERM was held in Phoenix, AZ in 1984 with a goal of fostering networking opportunities for industry and academic professionals in semiconductor thermal management. Over the past decades, the event has developed into its own unique format with technical sessions covering a wide array of topics, from thermal design and modeling to system-level validation testing, providing insights from both academic research and private sector R&D. Additionally, the event includes vendor exhibits where companies showcase their latest products and services in thermal management. 

In parallel, the SEMI-THERM Educational Foundation (STEF) was established in 2013 as a Non-Profit Educational Foundation. STEF is dedicated to worldwide educational opportunities and resources within the electronics thermal engineering community, with a goal of providing programs for on-going professional development, technical networking, and engagement of academia and industry in pursuit of innovation and excellence. 

More information on SEMI-THERM is available on https://semi-therm.org/.  SEMI-THERM 41 will be held in San Jose, CA, March 10-14, 2025. 

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Authors

Navid Kazem
Dr. Navid Kazem is CEO and co-founder of Arieca Inc. He completed his PhD in computational mechanics at Carnegie Mellon where he developed the core technology behind Liquid Metal Embedded Elastomers (LMEE). He is a former Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship Fellow at Tepper School of Business, with multiple high-impact publications and patents. His background combines a deep technical expertise with the capacity to convert cutting-edge scientific advancement into commercial tech­nology. As a CEO with deep technical expertise at Arieca, Navid leads product development of LMEEs, commercial strategic partnerships, as well as fund raising, and is currently serving as program chair of the SEMI-THERM conference.

Dr. Lieven Vervecken
Dr. Vervecken is the CEO and co-founder of Diabatix, a software company specialized in advanced thermal design. Prior to founding Diabatix, Dr. Vervecken received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the renowned KU Leuven in the field of nu­merical simulations. Dr. Vervecken incorporated his expertise into the advanced A.I. technology at the heart of Diabatix. What started as a small venture has become a fast-growing SaaS company serving multinationals worldwide. Dr. Vervecken is the lead author of multiple peer-reviewed journal articles and an experienced keynote speaker at national and international conferences.

Alex Ockfen, P.E.
Alex Ockfen is a product design engineer at Meta (formerly Facebook), providing technical leadership for thermal and structural design of consumer electronics products. He held previous positions at Raytheon where he obtained experience in thermal management and electronics cooling of a wide range of aerospace and defense applications. He has more than 10 journal and conference publications, is an inventor on multiple patents, is a professional mechanical engineer, and served as the program chair for SEMI-THERM in 2024.