Hardware engineers all bump into this problem eventually: The cost of the heat sink solution part of the thermal management design is out of balance with the overall programs development costs.
The first thought is, “get a cheaper heat sink”. That’s a natural response that probably won’t work since the reason the originally chosen heat sink is so expensive is that it has a thermal resistance geared to your challenging application. The second thought is, “get a bigger fan”. Afterall, the chips will eventually cool down with enough air, right? (yes your users might go deaf when you implement that bigger fan).
A better strategy within the limits of project time constraint, budget, and technical requirements for trace length, might be to consider how the PCB board can be layed out for optimal air flow. In this ATS Thermal White Paper we talk about how to do that. We give you specific tools and strategies. Why do that when we could sell you a better heat sink? Because at ATS we are passionate about cooling hot stuff down (and saving users from going deaf from larger fans). Have a read here at our white paper: “The Effect of Compact PCB Layout on Thermal Management“.
And ATS can help you with that of course through our Engineering Consulting Services, click to learn more about us: ATS Thermal Management Design Consulting Services or tell us a bit about your project through our on-line project submission: Thermal Design On-Line Project Request
