By Navid Kazem, Lieven Vervecken, and Claire Wemp
The SEMI-THERM 41 Symposium was held March 10-13, 2025 at the Double Tree Hotel in San Jose, CA. Program organization was led by General Chair Lieven Vervecken (Diabatix), Program Chair Dr. Navid Kazem (Arieca), and Program Vice Chair Dr. Claire Wemp (DuPont). It featured a variety of activities including technical short courses, technical sessions, invited presentations, vendor exhibits and workshops, a panel discussion and two luncheon talks.
Short Courses
Five short courses were held on Monday, March 10. These courses were selected to provide learning opportunities for individuals ranging from those who are new to thermal design to those who are highly experienced. These courses were offered:
- “Efficient Thermal Simulation Using Compact Models”, taught by Prof. Tamara Bechtold, Jade University of Applied Sciences, Germany.
- “Innovative Two-Phase Cooling Solutions: Shaping the Future of Data Center Thermal Management”, taught by Oliver DeLaet and Ben Sutton of Calyos.
- “Thermal Management and Thermomechanical Reliability of Automotive Power Electronics and Electric Motors”, taught by Paul Peret, Gilbert Moreno, and Bidzino Kekelia, of NREL.
- “Recent Use-Inspired Research Breakthroughs in Semiconductor Thermal Management Technologies and Metrologies”, taught by Prof. Justin Weibel and Prof. Amy Marconnet Purdue University.
- “Heat Pipes: Fundamental and Applications”, taught William Anderson and Calin Tarau, of Advanced Cooling Technologies
Technical Conference
Held from Tuesday, March 11 to Thursday, March 13, the technical conference featured 39 presentations across seven tracks and nine sessions:
- AI Accelerators and Data Centers
- Immersion Single-phase and Two-phase liquid cooling & Heat Sinks
- Testing and Measurement Methods
- Liquid Metals
- Thermal Interface Materials
- Emerging Technologies
The technical program also included three invited presentations by industry experts in thermal management:
- Mark Schultz, of IBM, delivered the Keynote presentation on “Pumped Two-Phase Cooling for Sustainable High-Performance Computing”, which explored challenges, approaches and results for two phase flow boiling, innovative cold plate implementation, as well as in a future 3D chip stack embedded cooling configuration.
- Rajiv Mongia, of Intel, received the SEMI-THERM 41 Thermi Award. His presentation “Keeping Hot Chips Cool” described thermal challenges and opportunities of advanced semiconductor packaging, with a message that the future will be integrated platforms and thermal will an important part of it.
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Jim Wilson, of RTX(Retired), received the Hall of Fame award. He presented “Reflections on a Career in Electronics Cooling”, which provided his perspective of how the field of electronics cooling has evolved to address the continuous growing challenges of heat while learning from past experiences.
Peer Reviewed Papers
The following papers underwent a peer review process and were accepted as “peer-reviewed papers”:
- “Optimizing Structural Rigidity and Thermal Performance of Vapor Chambers via Pillar Distribution and Filling Ratio”, by Nawaf Rasheed, Dhruvil Prajapati, Chengyan Li, and L. Winston Zhang
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“Integration of Two-Phase Flow Boiling in Future Power Packages” by R. Schacht, B. Majed, T. Grün, D. May, M. Abo Ras, and B. Wunderle
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“Thermal Characterization Testing with a Three-Resistor Finite Difference Model” by Adolfo Lozano III, PhD, PE
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“Pressure Matching and Flowrate Requirements for Datacenter Liquid Cooling Rack”, Javier Avalos, Travis Gaskill, and Umut Z. Uras
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“High Performance 3U-Form Factor Pulsating Heat Pipe Heat Spreader” by Sai Kiran Hota, Kuan-Lin Lee, Ramy Abdelmaksoud, and Srujan Rokkam
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“Enhancing Energy Efficiency in Telecom System Cooling: A Predictive Neural Network Strategy with FPGA Reconfiguration”, Ashok Kumar Sankaran, Mohan K, Manikandan R, and Damaruganath Pinjala
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“Calibration of the Performance Measurement for Thin Vapor Chambers by Photonics Technologies”, Kuang-Yu Hsu, Yi-Jing Chu, Andhi Indira Kusuma, Krishn Patel, Rajveer G V, and Ming-Hsien Hsiao
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“Effect of Surface Roughness on the Performance of Thermal Interface Materials”, Roshan Sameer Annam, Loren Russell, Cara Rossetti, Dylan Shah, and Navid Kazem
The Harvey Rosten Award, which is sponsored by Siemens Digital Industries Software, is presented at SEMI-THERM. This year’s winner was “Static and Dynamic Thermal Modelling of Si Photonic Thermo-Optic Phase Shifter” by Kristof Croes, Minkyu Kim, Herman Oprins, Joris Van Campenhout, Ingrid De Wolf, Peter De Heyun, and David Coenen from Imec.
Vendor Exhibits and Workshops
Forty-four companies participated in the exhibits, showcasing a variety of thermal management products and services, including heat sinks, thermal interface materials, heat pipes, vapor chambers, fluid connectors, air-movers, and advanced materials. Other exhibitors featured tools for thermal simulation and testing, thermal consulting, a university consortium and, of course, Electronics Cooling Magazine. In addition to the booths in the exhibit hall, several vendors also gave Vendor Workshops in which they provided detailed information on their products in a more formal presentation format.
Other SEMI-THERM 41 Activities Included:
- In the panel discussion “Keeping It Cool” invited panelist provided their thoughts on the role of AI for thermal engineers. The panel was moderated by Lieven Vervecken (Diabatix) and included Sharon Adam (Eridu AI), Reza Najjari (CoolIT), Jason Strader (DuPont), and Oliver DeLaet (Calyos) as panelists.
- A luncheon presentation on Wednesday March 12, by Prof. Lydia Sohn from Berkeley, provided an engaging and entertaining presentation on Heat transfer and Cooking. Her presentation emphasized that every cooking project is a heat transfer experiment.
About SEMI-THERM
SEMI-THERM, or the Semiconductor Thermal Measurement, Modeling, and Management Symposium, is an annual international conference dedicated to the thermal management and characterization of electronic components and systems. The first SEMI-THERM was held in Phoenix, AZ in 1984 with a goal of fostering networking opportunities for industry and academic professionals in semiconductor thermal management. Over the past decades, the event has developed into its own unique format with technical sessions covering a wide array of topics, from thermal design and modeling to system-level validation testing, providing insights from both academic research and private sector R&D. Additionally, the event includes vendor exhibits where companies showcase their latest products and services in thermal management.
In parallel, the SEMI-THERM Educational Foundation (STEF) was established in 2013 as a Non-Profit Educational Foundation. STEF is dedicated to worldwide educational opportunities and resources within the electronics thermal engineering community, with a goal of providing programs for on-going professional development, technical networking, and engagement of academia and industry in pursuit of innovation and excellence.
More information on SEMI-THERM is available at www.semitherm.org.
SEMI-THERM 42 will be held in San Jose, CA, March 9-12, 2026.
