Check the news out at Purdue ME website: Tiwei Wei receives Intel’s 2024 Rising Star Faculty Award – Mechanical Engineering – Purdue University
Tiwei Wei’s research focuses on solving the fabrication challenges and heat transfer issues in advanced semiconductor packaging and assembly. He is developing new materials and techniques for scaling 3D interconnect density, including through silicon vias (TSVs), through glass vias (TGVs), Cu/Sn microbump bonding, and Cu/SiO₂ hybrid bonding. In addition, his lab is investigating the fundamental thermal, mechanical, and electrical behaviors associated with these scaling 3D metal interconnects. Supported by the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), his team reported the resulting stresses via Raman spectroscopy for in-house developed blind TSVs with diameters as small as 1 μm. Moreover, his team has explored integrating micro/nanoscale porous copper inverse opals (CIO) structure into fine-pitch Sn-based solder microbumps to enhance the thermal conductivity and mechanical reliability in 3D semiconductor devices. Wei also introduced hotspot targeted microjet cooling to address potential temperature non-uniformity from different functional blocks within processors. Additionally, Wei led a team to raise $1.8 million funding from the DOE ARPA-E COOLERCHIPS program to develop a chip/package level confined two-phase microjet cooling, which utilizes porous structure surface enhancement and phase separations. These innovative solutions are expected to pave the way for more efficient thermal management in high-density advanced packaging and 3D integration.