Fig. 1: Levels in a computer environment. Introduction Increasing demands for higher performance in microprocessors have a direct effect on chip power and heat generation. Increased function and miniaturization of the packages result in thermal challenges that require a thorough understanding of the system's thermal performance under all possible field conditions. Regardless … [Read more...]
Calculating Spreading Resistance in Heat Sinks
Accident? Consider the scenario where a designer wishes to incorporate a newly developed device into a system and soon learns that a heat sink is needed to cool the device. The designer finds a rather large heat sink in a catalog which marginally satisfies the required thermal criteria. Due to other considerations, such as fan noise and cost constraints, an attempt to use a … [Read more...]
Standardizing heat sink characterization for forced convection
Figure 1. Wind tunnel configuration Introduction While there has been a flurry of activity inliterature addressing the behavior of heat sinks in computer electronics,the reusability of the data presented in these papers has been somewhatlimited for two reasons: 1) The data presented is application specific. 2) There has never been a standard method for characterizing … [Read more...]
Calculating interface resistance
Figure 1. Ceramic Package - Aluminum Heat SinkAssembly Introduction The exposed surface area of many of today's high powered electronic packagesis no longer sufficient for the removal of the heat generated during normaloperation. Heat sinks are a commonly-used, low cost means of increasing theeffective surface area for dissipating heat by means of convective air cooling.While … [Read more...]
A simple method to estimate heat sink air flow bypass
Introduction After selecting or designing a heat sink based upon a given air velocity orvolumetric flow rate through the fins, the thermal designer needs to determinethe total amount of flow which must be delivered in the duct or card passagecontaining the module w with heat sink. As shown in Figure 1, some of the flowwill go around or bypass the heat sink. In fact, depending … [Read more...]
