We’ve put up a Facebook page to better connect with those of you who are both thermal management professionals or just interested in the topic of heat transfer, heat sinks and all things about electronics cooling.
You can follow us at Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/heatsinks
We do alot of testing of our heatsinks here at Advanced Thermal Solutions. Our labs are regularly hot with test activity since we prefer to publish accurate test data on our product’s performance. Our LGA heatsink is one in particular.
Our ATS-57000 LGA Heatsink was put through it’s paces and we have some impressive test data.
Scenario: The required thermal target performance was 0.7°C/W with a 60W heat load and 12.4×15.3mm die size. The thermal solution was verified by 3 independent methods; analytical modeling, CFD simulations, and laboratory testing.
What did we do: First, an analytical approach was used to provide a first order calculation of thermal performance. From these calculations we found that a 40 millimeter fan would provide sufficient airflow to meet the cooling objective. These calculations provided a foundation on which to base our solid models on. After modeling the heatsink and fan, the assembly was simulated in CFDesign, a computational fluid dynamics software tool.
Once the optimal heatsink geometry was found in CFD simulation, a prototype was machined and tested in the ATS Fluids Laboratory. The testing involved several different interface materials from grease through phase change material.
What were the results?: During laboratory testing the heatsink thermal resistance was 0.51 to 0.58°C/W with various types of thermal grease. This performance level exceeds the given specification of 0.7°C/W with an 18% margin of safety. A further improvement of approximately 4% can be reached with a higher output AVC fan
Readers of our blog are welcome to email us for the full report. Also, our design is highly scalable to a custom version as well. Because we have an exisiting design your custom costs will be lower than anyone starting from scratch. Drop me some mail at joday@qats.com for your free copy of our report.
ATS has published two articles from the past on the topic of, “Why use active heat sinks” that we thought were worth putting some focus on to help our thermal management practitioners. The fall back to an active heat sink can be alluring (what’s easier than slapping a cpu cooler fan onto your heatsink? More air should cure all thermal management ills, no?)
The first article, “Active heat sinks direct air on hot chips but are they always the right choice?“ we published around the thought process on if an active heat sink was even necessary for your design. It’s a good read to help prime your personal thought process and to think through your system design first.
The second article, “How system airflow affects active heat sinks: ATS “how to” white paper“, covers the topic of the affect of your overall system airflow on your active heat sink. Cooling fans consist of an aggregate of airfoils, i.e., blades positioned around a hub that is driven by an electric motor. Due to their airfoil nature, a pressure differential is required across the blades to create the required flow. Therefore if this pressure differential is disturbed, fans will suffer performance degredation.
