As industry prepares for the launch of next-generation copper and optical QSFP-DD transceivers, thermal management strategies are critical. The new Molex QSFP-DD thermal solution can cool a range of 15W to 20W in different configurations with a 15 degree Celsius change from ambient temperature. In data centers and telecommunication infrastructure, 56 and 112 Gbps … [Read more...]
Are Power Electronic Modules a New Growth Opportunity for Conductive Pastes?
Power electronics is a growing market thanks to the electrification of many industries such as the automotive industry. The power electronic modules being used are growing in performance; in particular, they are becoming smaller, lighter weight, more tightly integrated, and better able to handle higher power levels. In some cases the semiconductor technology is also shifting … [Read more...]
Thermal Facts & Fairy Tales: Whatever Happened to the Predicted Data Center Energy Consumption Apocalypse?
As the title indicates, since the middle of the last decade, there have been very pessimistic projections regarding the growth of the total annual energy used by data centers in the U.S. One of them suggested that by 2030, the energy consumption in the U.S. in the IT sector would be roughly 60% of that used by its entire industrial sector. [1,2,3] What was the origin of this … [Read more...]
Using Electrical Capacitance to Evaluate the Thermal Mechanical Stability of Thermal Interface Materials
BY: Lauren Boston, Andrew Yu, Timothy Chainer, Edward Yarmchuk, and Michael Gayness To improve cooling of electronic components, a heat spreader is typically attached to the component to spread the heat laterally and facilitate the heat removal by a heat sink. To ensure good thermal conduction between the heat spreader and heatsink, a thermal interface material is applied … [Read more...]
What…Use Lasers and LEDs for Cooling?
In a recent blog “Some New Cooling Ideas are Needed Here,” I suggested (hoped?) that someone would figure out how to leverage the thermal laws of physics to devise innovative cooling systems which go beyond widely used, conventional techniques of conduction, convection, and radiation. The reason for looking beyond these solutions is that they seem to have reached a limit as to … [Read more...]
