Contribute youthful strength to China's "core"! Hunan vocational college students independently develop domestically produced chip cooling materials

Hunan Daily All Media Reporter Yu Rong Correspondent Zhang ChenlianThe surface modified diamond particles are loaded into a metal mold, and then the mold and copper are placed in a vacuum pressure infiltration furnace. The furnace is vacuumed and heated to around 1000 degrees Celsius, and the melted copper liquid is poured into the composite billet

Hunan Daily All Media Reporter Yu Rong Correspondent Zhang Chenlian

The surface modified diamond particles are loaded into a metal mold, and then the mold and copper are placed in a vacuum pressure infiltration furnace. The furnace is vacuumed and heated to around 1000 degrees Celsius, and the melted copper liquid is poured into the composite billet... After about 5 hours of powder loading and discharging, a furnace of diamond/copper composite products with excellent heat dissipation performance is successfully prepared.

This is a high conductivity diamond/copper heat dissipation product independently developed by the innovation and entrepreneurship team of high conductivity "core" materials students at Hunan Vocational and Technical College of Industry, which has improved the production process. The emergence of this technology product provides strong basic material support for promoting the progress of high-power chip packaging technology in China and upgrading the third-generation semiconductor chip application system. In the 9th "Internet plus" Undergraduate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition in Hunan Province, the team won the first prize of the vocational education track creative group.

Students born in the 2000s have built their own teams to tackle the issue of Chinese chip cooling materials

With the rapid development of third-generation semiconductor chip technology, there is a clear trend towards high integration and miniaturization of chips, and the requirements for chip heat dissipation are becoming higher and higher. However, the production technology of chip thermal management materials circulating in the market is monopolized by foreign countries, making it impossible to carry out large-scale production and application. "In 2021, Yang Qianwang, a welding major student at Hunan Vocational College of Industry, learned from the classroom about the current situation of" bottleneck "in Chinese chip heat dissipation materials, The idea of independently developing domestically produced chip cooling materials emerged.

After class, he found Dr. Xiao Jing, a material science and engineering major teacher at the school, to serve as a mentor and began to form a team. Finally, he recruited and selected 15 students to join them. The development of chip cooling products involves multiple fields and disciplines, and our team members come from different majors such as welding automation and industrial internet.

In October 2021, the innovation and entrepreneurship team of high conductivity "core" materials was officially established. At that time, they only had equipment for one process, and most of the start-up funds were self raised. Nowadays, the team has 8 core technology related patents, and the project leader has applied for 3 patents as the first inventor. The team members have won more than 40 national and provincial awards such as the first prize in the National Advanced Mapping Competition in the past 3 years, and have organized 44 innovation, entrepreneurship, and science popularization activities.

800 experiments at a high temperature of 1000 degrees Celsius, forging ahead with the spirit of craftsmanship

The speed of the tungsten powder rotation is fast, and there are still two sides of the diamond that have not been coated with tungsten. "" On this side, the tungsten powder is not evenly coated. "... At the machining center in Wangcheng District, Changsha City, Yang Yuanwang and team member Chen Yuefen study the surface modification of diamonds, often standing for three hours at a time. Their goal is to use their self-developed diamond surface modification device to evenly coat the 12 faces of diamonds ranging from 50 to 100 microns in size with tungsten powder, thereby reducing interfacial thermal resistance and enabling better bonding between diamonds and copper.

Diamond/copper composite materials are hailed as the most promising new generation of thermal management materials. However, diamond is the hardest substance naturally present in nature. How to composite it with copper, reduce interfacial thermal resistance, and use what methods to reduce production costs are all challenges facing the team. "Teacher Xiao Jing introduced that after visiting and researching more than 50 enterprises and consulting thousands of literature materials, The team ultimately decided to 'gnaw' at this tough bone.

The team chooses to collaborate with Hunan Haowei Te Company, often running between the school and the company, to complete both the "mental work" of product design and the "physical work" of carrying heavy objects. They often climb up the top of a 4-meter-high furnace with a 10 pound crucible, open the furnace cover that weighs about 100 pounds, and place the diamond, copper ingot, and crucible together in the furnace. The temperature inside the furnace can reach up to thousands of degrees Celsius during operation, and the temperature outside the furnace is close to 40 degrees Celsius. Everyone's thick work clothes can sweat out, and their faces are also "baked" red.

We have conducted over 800 experiments, and as soon as the machine is turned on, we have to wait for over 3 hours to record the production status of diamond/copper composite materials under different temperature and pressure parameters. We often miss meals, "said Chen Yuefen.

5-hour batch production per furnace to assist in the upgrading and iteration of Chinese chips

During the operation of chips, a large amount of heat is generated. Our diamond/copper composite material has high thermal conductivity and a thermal expansion coefficient that matches the chip very well, which can solve the problem of heat dissipation for most chips. "Yang Wangwang introduces that products produced by the team can be used, from chips the size of a shell to chips the size of a mobile phone. This will be beneficial for the improvement of high-end chip performance in China and assist in the upgrading and iteration of Chinese chips.

It is understood that this high-end chip cooling product can be applied in industries such as data centers, 5G base stations, and new energy vehicles. The team has provided product installation and trial runs for multiple leading enterprises such as Huawei and Hefei Shengda Electronics, and all performance indicators meet usage requirements. At present, multiple companies have thrown olive branches for collaborative production to team members.

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