Over the past several years thermal engineers and others in the computer industry have become acutely aware of the challenge of increasing power dissipation and the potential of liquid (principally water) cooling to provide a thermal management solution. A number of articles in ElectronicsCooling have addressed both the issue of increased power dissipation [1-4] and various … [Read more...]
A Practical Implementation Of Silicon Microchannel Coolers
Introduction More than twenty-five years ago, Tuckerman and Pease first described the use of silicon microchannel cooling for very high power densities [1]. However, the coolers could not be fabricated easily and pressure drops were very high. As chip power densities are now increasing beyond air cooling limits, a variety of liquid cooling methods are being investigated. Due to … [Read more...]
Estimating the effect of intercoolers for computer rack cooling
Figure 1. Four board high rack with serial air flow configuration. Figure 2. Rack with intercoolers cooled by water flowing parallel to air flow direction. In the February 2007 issue of ElectronicsCooling the Calculation Corner article addressed the use of a water-cooled air-to-liquid heat exchanger to reduce computer rack air exhaust temperatures and mitigate the effect of … [Read more...]
Liquid Cooling is Back
Introduction IBM announced its return to water cooling on April 19, 2005 with the introduction of a water cooled heat exchanger mounted to the back cover of a 19 inch rack. This is the first of the major datacom equipment manufacturers to employ water cooling for a rack of CMOS processors, using a cooling distribution unit supplying the water and rejecting the heat load to … [Read more...]
Review of Low Profile Cold Plate Technology for High Density Servers
Introduction Water cooling of computers was introduced more than twenty years ago, but had disappeared from the mainstream by the mid 1990s. The conversion of chip technology from bipolar to CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) was the main reason. As chip powers continue to increase, water cooling appears likely to become mainstream again. In the current market, the … [Read more...]
