Technical Brief John F. Maddox, Ph.D., P.E. The IEEE Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (ITherm) was held at the Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV from May 28-31, 2019. This was the 31st Anniversary of ITherm, first held in 1988. The conference was historically held every other year until 2016 when it … [Read more...]
3D Printing Allows for Complex, High Surface Area Geometries Optimized for Convection Cooling
3D printing is growing rapidly and has shown the potential to disrupt the manufacturing industry. Like many emerging technologies, initial adoption is being driven by the highest value markets including biomedical and aerospace, where 3D printing for end use parts is now being implemented at commercial scale. Moreover, as 3D printer costs fall and capabilities continue to … [Read more...]
Some New Cooling Ideas are Needed Here
In the 1920s, the field of physics was in disarray. The reason was that many careful observations and experimental data could only be explained by conflicting theories; for example, some proved that light was a wave, while others provided it had a particle-like nature. Other experiments, such as those in black-body radiation or the photoelectric effect, could not be explained … [Read more...]
You’re Sending That Heat “Away” to Where, Exactly?
Engineers are generally hard-nosed realists and don’t rely on the mythical kingdoms of fairy tales where only good things can happen and all problems disappear. Still, there is one magical place which is often called out when dealing with the thermal aspects of design, and it has the simple name of “away.” How so? Cooling devices and techniques – including heat sinks, heat … [Read more...]
Balancing Local Versus Global Cooling Requirements
When you’re planning how to solve the ongoing problem of keeping things cool enough, it’s easy to mentally blur the lines between hot components and hot boxes. The difficulty is that the solution for one of these may not be adequate or appropriate for the other. Here’s the situation: in most systems, the heat sources are not distributed uniformly across the circuit board … [Read more...]
