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...]
Calculation Corner: Thermal Interactions Between High-Power Packages and Heat Sinks, Part 2
These days, many thermal engineers face the challenge of defining effective heat sink cooling solutions for high power processors and ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits). The usual practice would be to calculate a value of ΘJA (junction-to-air thermal resistance) for the combined package/heat sink assembly and compare it to the requirements of the … [Read more...]
Calculation Corner: Thermal Interactions Between High-Power Packages and Heat Sinks, Part 1
Bruce Guenin, PhD Associate Technical Editor The need to accommodate increasing chip power has led to improved package and heat sink designs having much lower thermal resistance values than previously. This has led to challenges in accurately calculating the thermal performance of the package and heat sink as an integral unit on the basis of thermal resistance measurements … [Read more...]
The Uses of Simplicity in Thermal Analysis
Bruce Guenin, PhD Editor-in-Chief, Summer 2010 Issue The dramatic trajectory of Moore’s law has produced a number of changes in key areas of technology that are critical to our industry: 1) greater packaging and system complexity; 2) increased power dissipation; and 3) enhanced software tools and computing performance. The first two we put into the challenge category. They … [Read more...]
The Audacity of Engineering
At the time of this writing (mid-November), it appears that significant progress has been made toward avoiding a global financial collapse and that we now have a good chance of avoiding that fate. Unfortunately, it is now clear that, no matter how the credit markets fare, there will be a recession. Even after the world economy picks up again, the world will certainly face an … [Read more...]
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