Improved Thermal Management by High Growth Rate Diamond Layers

This Phase I project addresses the development of a process for the thermal management of semiconductor devices with diamond films grown by hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD). Thermal management of electronic and optical devices is one of themost critical areas for high power applications. Due to its unmatched thermal conductivity diamond is the ideal candidate. Currently HFCVD diamond growth is <1 um/hour. To reach the full economic potential of CVD diamond this rate needs to be increasedsignificantly to realize large reduction of the cost. The goal is to develop a process suitable for manufacturing applications that significantly increases the HFCVD diamond deposition rate over large areas. In the follow-on program we will achieve evenfaster growth rates by further optimization. Since diamond is extremely hard, chemically and thermally stable, and optically transparent in a wide spectral range, it can also be used in many other critical applications such as windows and in orbitalspacecraft. This technology could lead to low cost manufacturing of these high performance products. CVD diamond can be used as a thermal spreader for high power and high temperature semiconductor devices. The development of a high growth rate CVD diamondprocess would greatly reduce cost and benefit users of high power devices. Applications of CVD diamond heat spreaders include submounts for laser diodes, microwave power devices and substrates for MCMs.