The IEEE Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (ITherm) was held at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center, Dallas, TX, May 27 – 30, 2025. This was the 24th ITherm Conference. ITherm Conference series began in 1988 as a companion conference to the broader IEEE Electronic Packaging Society’s (at that time CHMT, later CPMT) flagship packaging conference, ECTC. ITherm 2025 was sponsored by the IEEE Electronics Packaging Society (EPS). ITherm has partnered with IEEE EPS peer conferences, including the International Workshop on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Systems (THERMINIC) in Europe, and the Electronics Packaging Technology Conference (EPTC 2025) in Asia.
The ITherm 2025 program consisted of 16 professional development workshops and three days of technical presentations across four technical tracks (Component Level Thermal Management, System Level Thermal Management, Mechanics & Reliability and Emerging Technologies & Fundamentals) with 39 sessions in which over 175 peer-reviewed technical papers and 7 vendor-sponsored talks were presented. Additional technical events included three keynote addresses, an invited talk from 2025 Richard Chu ITherm awardee, 7 panels, 8 technology talks, a student poster competition, a student cold plate design competition, and a special tour of University of Texas Arlington hosted by Professor Agonafer and his group.
ITherm 2025 was attended by over 460 participants with balanced participation from university/academia and industry/national labs. A little more than half the attendees participated in ITherm for the first time.
ITherm attendees get access to the joint ITherm/ECTC events. This year these joint events included a workshop on Heterogeneous Integration Roadmap (HIR), ECTC Young Professionals Networking Panel, 2025 ECTC Student & Start-Up InnovationChallenge and EPS President’s Panel.
Keynotes
On the first day of the conference, Raja Swaminathan, Corporate Vice President, AMD, gave a keynote address entitled “Future of AI Hardware Enabled by Advanced Packaging” detailing new heterogeneous architectures like 2.5D architectures and 3D Hybrid bonded architectures which are driving AMD’s advanced technology roadmap to enable power, performance, area, and cost (PPAC).
On the second day of the conference, Scott Parent, Vice President & Field CTO, Energy, Aerospace, Industrials, Ansys Inc., gave a keynote address entitled “Accelerating the Energy Transition Through Digital Engineering and Simulation” focusing on a digital hyper scaling ecosystem comprising model-based systems development, digital twinning and mission engineering.
On the final day of the conference, Cullen Bash, Vice President of Research & Development, Hewlett Packard Labs, gave a keynote address entitled “Data Center Energy Efficiency in a Post-Exascale Era” discussing recent research in improving the energy efficiency of data center and IT infrastructure.
Best and Outstanding Papers
Awards given for the best and outstanding papers in each of the four technical tracks, based on judging from reviewers and inputs from session and track chairs, were unveiled to the attendees.
Professor Avram Bar-Cohen Best Papers
Component Level Thermal Management
- Phasor-Based Dehomogenisation for Microchannel Cooling Topology Optimisation
Hao Li1, Peter Dørffler Ladegaard Jensen2, Rebekka Vaarum Woldseth3 & Joe Alexandersen1
1University of Southern Denmark, 2Technical University of Denmark, 3Centre Inria de l’Université de Lorraine
System Level Thermal Management
- Comparison of 3D Manifold Architectures for Cooling of Internal Heatsinks Using External Airflow
G. Farrell1, R. Nimmagadda1, S. N. Joshi2, D. J. Lohan2, E. M. Dede2, T. Persoons1
1Trinity College Dublin, 2Toyota Research Institute of North America
Mechanics and Reliability
- Impact of Non-Flat Heat Sink Surface on Degradation of Thermal Greases
Ritwik V. Kulkarni, Nolan P. Gronowski, Pranay P. Nagrani, Amy M. Marconnet
Purdue University
Emerging Technologies & Fundamentals
- Thermal Imaging and Flow Visualization of Capillary-Driven Two-Phase Boiling in Silicon Microchannels Coated with Porous Copper Wick
Yujui Lin1, Heungdong Kwon1, Kewei Xiao2, Man Prakash Gupta2, Michael Degner2, Mehdi Asheghi1, H. Alan Mantooth3 & Kenneth E. Goodson1
1Stanford University, 2Ford Motor company, 3University of Arkansas Fayetteville
Best Paper – Runners Up
Component Level Thermal Management
- Experimental Characterization of a Low Thermal Resistance Microchannel Evaporator Utilizing Low GWP Refrigerant for High Power GPU Applications
David J. Apigo1, Sarwesh N. Parbat1, Haotian Jia2, Haoyun Qiu3, Pouya Abirzadeh3, Manohar Bongarala1, Syed Faisal1, Rishav Roy1, Nenad Miljkovic3 & Todd Salamon1
1Nokia Bell Labs., 2Tufts University, 3University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign - Direct Visualization of Local Thermal Conductivity and Boundary Conductance of Diamond Particles
Luke Gyubin Min, Heungdong Kwon, Christopher Perez, Mehdi Asheghi & Kenneth E. Goodson
Stanford University - Development of Liquid Metal and Silicon Pin Fin Composite Thermal Interface Materials
Matthew Coughlin, Andrew Clements, Fangzhou Wang, Luke Gyubin Min, Kaiying Jiang, Heungdong Kwon, Mehdi Asheghi & Kenneth Goodson
Stanford University
System Level Thermal Management
- Automated Electro-Thermal Modeling Framework of Distributed Vertical Power Delivery Architectures with Substrate-Embedded Microfluidic Cooling
Mingeun Choi1, Sriharini Krishnakumar2, Yaroslav Popryho2, Ramin Rahimzadeh Khorasani3, Madhavan Swaminathan3, Inna Partin-Vaisband2 and Satish Kumar1
1Georgia Tech, 2University of Illinois – Chicago, 3Pennsylvania State University - Resiliency of Liquid-to-Liquid Cooling Systems in Data Centers Under Failure Scenarios
Ali Heydari1, Himanshu Modi1, Pardeep Shahi1, Lochan Sai Reddy Chintaparthy2, Anto Barigala2, Mohammad Raisul Islam2, Dereje Agonafer2, Mohammad Tradat1, Saket Karajgikar1, Jeremy Rodriguez1
1Nvidia Corp., 2University of Texas Arlington
Mechanics and Reliability
- Development of a Reduced-Order Nodal Reliability Framework for Data Center Applications
Tyler Schostek1, Nirmal Rai2, Kimberly Saviers2 & Davide Ziviani1
1Purdue University, 2RTX Technology Research Center
Emerging Technologies & Fundamentals
- Concept Design of a Confined Direct Two-Phase Jet Impingement Cooler with Phase Separation of Low-Surface-Tension Fluids
Gopinath Sahu, Ketan Yogi, Tiwei Wei & Justin Weibel Purdue University - Fabrication and Experimental Evaluation of Bendable Copper Flat-Plate Oscillating Heat Pipes
Ishan Tandon, Qian Qian, Zekun Wu, Ahmad Rosmahidi, Justin A. Weibel & Liang Pan
Purdue University
Student Poster and Networking Session
The student poster and networking session provided an opportunity for students to interact with industry and academic leaders in their fields. This venue enabled students to connect with possible future employers and to receive feedback on their work. The student posters were subjected to two rounds of judging based on technical merit, clarity, self-sufficiency of the content, originality of the work, visual presentation, and oral presentation with best and outstanding posters selected for each technical track and one poster was selected as the best overall.
Best Overall Poster
- Zekun Wu, Purdue University (Prof. Lian Pan & Prof. Justin Weibel), “Topology optimization for embedded cooling of multiple and transient workloads in 3D semiconductor packages”
Best Posters
Component Level Thermal Management
- Devang Tavkari, Purdue University (Prof. Amy Marconnet & Prof. Tiwei Wei), “Multiphysics Topology Optimization of Metal-Polymer Composite Thermal Interface Materials”
System Level Thermal Management
- Oscar Alvarez Lemus, University of Toronto (Prof. Cristina Amon), “Predicting multiscale thermal transport in high-capacity pouch-type lithium-ion batteries for stationary energy storage systems”
Mechanics and Reliability
- Ritwik Kulkarni, Purdue University (Prof. Amy Marconnet), “Impact of Non-Flat Heat Sink Surface on Degradation of Thermal Greases”
Emerging Technologies & Fundamentals
- Ishan Tandon, Purdue University (Prof. Justin Weibel), “Fabrication and experimental evaluation of bendable copper flat-plate oscillating heat pipe”
Best Poster – Runners Up
Component Level Thermal Management
- Naarendharan Meenakshi Sundaram, UCLA (Prof. Timothy Fisher & Prof. Subramanian S Iyer), “Flash boiling of methanol/water mixtures in a microchannel cooler”
System Level Thermal Management
- Derian Morphew, Texas A&M University (Prof. Patrick J. Shamberger), “Rate of Thermal Energy Storage in Composite Phase Change Material Slabs”
Mechanics and Reliability
- Padmanava Choudhury, Auburn University (Prof. Pradeep Lall), “Humidity and High-temperature Effects on non-PFAS Thermal Interface and Underfill Materials”
- Yunli Zhang, Auburn University (Prof. Pradeep Lall), “Thermal Conductivity Evolution of Non-PFAS Automotive Packaging Material under High Temperature and Humidity Exposure”
Emerging Technologies & Fundamentals
- Zane Oligee, Auburn University (Prof. Nicholas Tsolas), “An Experimental Study of the Thermal-Hydraulic Performance of an Additively Manufactured Mini-Channel Cold Plate”
- Priyanka Viswanath, University of Michigan, Ann-Arbor (Prof. Solomon Adera), “Pool boiling enhancement using engineered nucleation sites”
Student Design Challenge
The ASME K-16/IEEE EPS Student Design Challenge is a team competition in which students design, analyze, and optimize an additively manufactured cold-plate to cool constant heat flux power-electronics modules that are subjected to forced convection liquid cooling using water. Designs were submitted by student teams from around the world and evaluated by a team of experts based on a series of design and manufacturing criteria. For the 2025 competition, the top 4 creative designs with the highest predicted performance were 3D printed using additive manufacturing facilities at Fabric8labs and tested using state-of-the-art test equipment at Intel and the S-PACK lab at Purdue University. The finalist cold-plate designs are shown in Figure 1. To see the designs in 3D and to learn more about the design process, visit www.ieee-itherm.net /2025-cold-plate-design-finalists/.
Team Members:
Chilly Platter: Yue Heng Tan, Adam Blackwood, Nimrit Kanwal, and Derin Catstaban
Aero Product: Congrui Ma, Junren Mao, Hongzhuo Zhu, and Jikun Qian
MSAM MDAM: Joseph Nonso Orakwe and Alex Inoma
CUHK MAE: Xiaotong Wang and Zijun Gao
Winner
Joseph Nonso Orakwe (University of Waterloo) and Alex Inoma (University of Alberta); MSAM MDAM, (Figure 2).
Runner-up
Yue Heng Tan (University of Bristol), Adam Blackwood (University of Sheffield), Nimrit Kanwal (University of Nottingham), Derin Castaban (University of Birmingham), Isaac Waters (Loughborough University); Chilly Platter, (Figure 3).
Richard Chu ITherm Award for Excellence
Richard Chu Award for Excellence in Thermal and Thermo-Mechanical Management of Electronics, formerly known as the ITherm Achievement Award, and is presented in recognition of significant contributions made in thermal and thermo-mechanical aspects of electronics devices and systems. The Award has been re-named to honor the late Richard Chu, the first recipient of the ITherm Achievement Award, and a seminal contributor to thermal management of electronics.
In 2025, Chandrakant Patel was awarded the Richard Chu ITherm Award for Excellence. A former SVP, Chief Engineer, and Senior Fellow at HP Inc. – Chandrakant has been a Silicon Valley contributor for 42 years. Formerly leading HP Labs, he has shaped advancements in chips, high performance computing systems, storage, networking, 3D additive manufacturing systems, and software platforms. Pioneering energy-efficient data center solutions, he founded the Smart Data Center research program at HP Laboratories that led to multi-billion-dollar data center infrastructure and services business. He is a recognized leader in AI, energy efficient computing, and sustainability. With deep passion for fundamentals, and workforce development, he has also served as adjunct faculty in engineering at UC Berkeley, San Jose State, Santa Clara University and Chabot College for two decades.
The Award was presented to Chandrakant during the luncheon on the first day of the conference. He gave a luncheon address entitled “Energy and Thermal Management of Chips, Systems, and Datacenters Necessitates a Return to Fundamentals” focusing on a holistic approach rooted in engineering fundamentals that traces the energy flow from a power plant to a chip, and from the chip core to the cooling tower.
Proceedings
The ITherm 2025 Proceedings will be made available through the IEEE Xplore Digital Library later this year. Papers appearing in the Table of Contents will be available for access and download, along with listings of our Keynote Speakers, Tech Talks, Panels, Sponsors, and Exhibitors.
Sponsors and Exhibitors
ITherm 2025 was made possible by those of you who attended and by the generous support of our 20+ sponsors and exhibitors and a large group of volunteers. This year we have had unbelievable sponsorship from both industry and academia, which enables student travel grants to expand student participation at ITherm, along with enhancing our conference activities. We greatly appreciate each of this year’s sponsors and exhibitors for the critical role their sponsorship provides to ITherm.
ITherm 2025 Organization Committee
Amy Marconnet, Ph.D. , Purdue University – General Chair Milnes David, Ph.D., IBM Corporation – Program Chair
John Maddox, Ph.D., P.E., University of Kentucky – Vice-Program Chair
Pritish Parida, Ph.D., IBM Research – Communications Chair
ITherm 2026
We hope you will join us at the JW Marriot Grande Lakes, Orlando, FL, USA, May 26th-29th, 2026, for ITherm 2026.
