(Editor's Note: Part 2 of this article will appear in the November 2003 issue of ElectronicsCooling.) Cooling electronic systems is one of the major focal points of the design process and the key to a successful product launch. Many options to attain successful operation are available, ranging from passive cooling to cryogenics. These options are obviously power dissipation … [Read more...]
Electroosmotic Microchannel Cooling System for Microprocessors
Computer heat sinks, such as fin arrays and heat pipes, are much larger than silicon chips and are continuing to grow in size. This trend is driven by the increasing chip heat generation rates and has serious implications for overall system performance. The large volume of existing heat sinks causes discrete memory, video, and power-delivery components to be crowded away from … [Read more...]
Estimating Temperatures in a Water-to-Air Hybrid Cooling System
As most readers are no doubt aware, the trend towards ever increasing processor module power is making it more and more difficult to cool directly with air. Many thermal engineers are convinced that water cooling may be the answer. This does not necessarily mean that cooling water must be supplied by the customer. Instead, in some instances it may be possible to use a … [Read more...]
The Challenge of Operating Computers at Ultra-low Temperatures
Although the potential for low temperature enhancement of CMOS circuit performance has been recognized for some time, circuit scaling (proportionally reducing the size of the circuit) has been the preferred method of achieving higher performance. But as minimum feature size passed well into the sub-micron and now into the nanometer region, this route to higher performance has … [Read more...]
Vapor Compression Cooling for High Performance Applications
Vapor compression refrigeration is being adapted to cool computer and telecommunications equipment in a limited number of high performance applications. Vapor compression can lift large heat loads and can heat sink at below ambient temperatures. Cold plates can offset high case-to-junction temperature gradients to keep high power integrated circuits from overheating and/or can … [Read more...]
