THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Kang-Jia WangORCID

,

Wen-Jing Liu

THERMAL OPTIMIZATION OF THE 3-D INTEGRATED CIRCUITS WITH FRACTAL MICRO-CHANNELS

ABSTRACT
The thermal optimization management is one of the key issues in 3-D integrated circuits (3D-IC). This paper leverages the dendritic biomimetic structures’ superior thermal properties to probe the thermal management for the 3D-IC via introducing two different fractal micro-channels, which are Y-shaped and T-shaped fractal micro-channels. Three different 3D-IC thermal models with the different micro-channels such as the straight, Y-shaped fractal, and T-shaped fractal micro-channels are designed and simulated via ANSYS FLUENT. Identical boundary comparisons across inlet velocities show fractal designs reduce heat-source temperatures by 20-25°C (13.9%-32.3%) vs. straight channels. T-shaped micro-channels consistently outperformed Y-shaped, cutting peak hotspot temperature by 1.54-3.90°C, with the margin widening at higher flow rates, evidencing superior systemic cooling. At 1.5 m/s, three cross-sectional flow analyses reveal fractal cooling superiority stems from synergistic targeted jet cooling and boundary-layer resetting. Y- and T-shaped fractal micro-channels demonstrate substantial advantages over conventional designs for 3D-IC cooling.
KEYWORDS
three-dimensional integrated circuits, Fractal microchannels, thermal optimization
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2025-09-09
PAPER REVISED: 2025-11-27
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2025-12-03
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2026-01-17
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI250909237W
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2026, VOLUME 30, ISSUE No. 3, PAGES [2129 - 2140]
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Thermal optimization of the 3-D integrated circuits with fractal micro-channels

© 2026 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence