Design and fabrication of structured roughnesses in microchannels with integrated MEMS pressure sensors

Abstract

As the demand for cooling is increased for high-density powered electronic devices, researchers have proposed solutions to improve the efficiency of the microchannel liquid cooling system to meet these requirements. Introducing roughness in the microchannels is one of the approaches to enhance the heat transfer. The fluid flow behavior needs experimental investigation before exploring the heat transfer efficiency. A test structure consisting MEMS pressure sensors were fabricated along the length of the microchannel. Smooth microchannels and rough microchannels with structured roughness were fabricated. A fabrication process flow has been developed to fabricate the microchannel and the pressure sensor on the same silicon wafer. The fabrication process challenges were solved to achieve the required test structure design. The process characterization of Microspray(TM) SU-8 has been one of the key features to define uniform coating on the silicon wafer. A packaging technique was developed on the fabricated test structures and was successfully implemented in some cases. An experimental setup was designed to test the fabricated test structure. The fabricated MEMS pressure sensors were calibrated and the experimental setup was validated using a smooth microchannel

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