(Editor's Note: Part 1 of this article appeared in the August 2003 issue of ElectronicsCooling. Illustration references in this part begin with Figure 5.) Cooling electronic systems is one of the major focal points of the design process and the key to a successful product launch. Many options to attain successful operation are available, ranging from passive cooling to … [Read more...]
Electroosmotic Microchannel Cooling System for Microprocessors
Computer heat sinks, such as fin arrays and heat pipes, are much larger than silicon chips and are continuing to grow in size. This trend is driven by the increasing chip heat generation rates and has serious implications for overall system performance. The large volume of existing heat sinks causes discrete memory, video, and power-delivery components to be crowded away from … [Read more...]
Estimating Temperatures in a Water-to-Air Hybrid Cooling System
As most readers are no doubt aware, the trend towards ever increasing processor module power is making it more and more difficult to cool directly with air. Many thermal engineers are convinced that water cooling may be the answer. This does not necessarily mean that cooling water must be supplied by the customer. Instead, in some instances it may be possible to use a … [Read more...]
Thermal Design Challenges in Automotive Alternator Power Electronics
Ever since the advent of the automotive alternator, or claw-pole alternating current generator, in the 1960's, there has been an ever-increasing thermal design challenge to cool the power electronics in these machines. Figure 1 depicts a typical cutaway section of a modern day alternator. At first glance one may think that cooling the diodes in a rectifier bridge of an … [Read more...]
Future trends in heat sink design
In today's electronics equipment, total system dissipated power levels are increasing with every new design. Increases in power levels combined with the market expectation of reduced package sizes lead to heat problems that, if uncontrolled, can significantly shorten the life of the electronics. Although this "increased power - decreased size" scenario has been prevalent for … [Read more...]
