Tag Archives: thermal performance

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Qpedia Thermal eMagazine June 2013

Qpedia Thermal eMagazine June 2013

Qpedia Thermal eMagazine, Volume 7, Issue 6, has just been released and can be downloaded at: http://www.qats.com/Qpedia-Thermal-eMagazine/Back-Issues.

This month’s featured articles include:

Enhancing Heat Sink Performance Using Thermoelectric Coolers

With the increase in the power dissipation of components and the parallel reduction of their size, engineers and researchers across the globe have been predicting that the era of air cooling might come to an end. Even though in some applications, with very high power dissipations such as IGBTs, air cooling may not be adequate and liquid cooling is a must; air cooling will continue to be the first choice for most electronic cooling applications for many years to come. Advances in air cooling continue to extend its use and the implementation of thermoelectric coolers (TECs) in heat sink applications is one such effort.

Immersion Liquid Cooling for Servers in Data Centers

Data center designers and operators have invented many ways to improve the data center’s thermal efficiency, such as optimizing the rack layout and air conditioner location, separating cold aisles and hot aisles, optimizing the configuration of pipes and cables in under-floor plenum, introducing liquid cooling to high-power severs. While the above methods can improve the data center heat load management, they cannot dramatically reduce the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). This article reviews two relatively new solutions: active single-phase immersion cooling technology proposed by Green Revolution Cooling (GRC) and a passive two-phase immersion cooling technology proposed by the 3M Company.

Industry Developments: Piezoelectric Cooling

Piezoelectric fans and jets must overcome various materials, thermal and mechanical challenges to become widely used in electronics cooling, but because they consume just 1/150 of the electricity of circular fans, run with little noise and have no parts that will wear out, they remain of great interest. In this article, a number of issues are addressed, including the inverse effect of the piezoelectric phenomena and dual piezoelectric cooling jets.

Technology Review: Innovative Cold Plate Designs, 2007 – 2012

In this issue our spotlight is on innovative cold plate designs. There is much discussion about its deployment in the electronics industry, and these patents show some of the salient features that are the focus of different inventors.

& Cooling News featuring the latest product releases and buzz from around the electronics cooling industry.

Download the issue now.

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Did you know Qpedia also publishes a book series? The five volume set contains 248 in-depth articles, researched and written by veteran engineers. They address the most critical areas of electronics cooling, with a wide spectrum of topics and thorough technical explanation. Order Now.

The New Qpedia Thermal eMagazine is Out

Qpedia Thermal eMagazine, Volume 7, Issue 4, has just been released and can be downloaded at: http://www.qats.com/Qpedia-Thermal-eMagazine/Back-Issues.

Featured articles in this issue include:

Dropwise Condensation in Vapor Chambers
Considerable attention has been devoted in the past to the evaporation process taking place in a vapor chamber. However, increased heat fluxes at the condensation end have prompted efforts to improve the condensation performance of the vapor chambers. This article presents a review of a novel method for improving the thermal performance of a vapor chamber condensing section by using special surfaces promoting dropwise condensation.

 

Heat Sink Manufacturing Using Metal Injection Molding

Using Metal Injection Molding It is only in the last few years that metal injection molding (MIM) has gained a foothold in the thermal community and its salient advantages have become more evident. The MIM process allows intricate features to be added into the heat sink design to boost thermal performance and its production process is very scalable compared with machining. Injection molding enables complex parts to be formed as easily as simple geometries, thereby allowing increased design freedom.  This article explore the merits of copper material in the MIM process.

 

Industry Developments: Thermoelectric Modules and Coolers

Thermoelectric modules (TEMs) are rugged, reliable and quiet devices that serve as heat pumps. The real heat-moving components inside TEMs are thermoelectric coolers or TECs. These are solid-state heat pumps and are designed for applications where temperature stabilization, temperature cycling, or cooling below ambient, are required. Today, TEMs are used in electro-optics applications, such as the cooling and stabilizing of laser diodes, IR detectors, cameras (charge coupled device), microprocessors, blood analyzers and optical switches. This article explores some of the latest developments in these devices.

 

Technology Review: Reducing Thermal Spreading Resistance in Heat Sinks

In this issue our spotlight is on reducing spreading resistance in heat sinks. There is much discussion about how this phenomenon can be achieved, and these patents show some of the salient features that are the focus of different inventors.

 

Cooling News featuring the latest product releases and buzz from around the electronics cooling industry.

 

Download the issue now.

 

Not a Qpedia subscriber? Subscribe Now for free at: http://www.qats.com/Qpedia-Thermal-eMagazine/Subscribe-to-Qpedia and see why over 18,000 engineers read Qpedia.

New maxiFLOW DC-DC Brick Heat Sinks Ideal for Military-COTS Applications

ATS has recently launched a new product line of maxiFLOW heat sinks, specially designed to cool DC-DC converters. The new line of heat sinks can be used with Vicor’s DC-DC converter Bricks, including their military-COTS applications.

Vicor’s Maxi, Mini, and Micro series DC-DC converters are relied upon by over eight thousand OEMs for their proven performance, broad coverage of input and output voltages, ease of mechanical mounting and thermal management flexibility. These converter modules use advanced power processing, control, and packaging technologies to provide the performance, flexibility, and ruggedness expected in a Military COTS product. High frequency ZCS/ZVS switching, advanced power semiconductor packaging, and thermal management provide high-power density with low noise and high efficiency.

maxiFLOW Heat Sink for Half Brick DC-DC Converters

 

ATS’ patented maxiFLOW technology cools millions of BGAs and other PCB components. The same technology is now available for cooling eighth, quarter, half and full brick modules, such as the Micro, Mini, and Maxi series from Vicor. Unlike other converter heat sinks, the patented maxiFLOW heat sink design reduces air pressure drop and provides greater surface area, increasing thermal performance by 30-200%.

Vicor’s Micro, Mini, and Maxi DC-DC Converters

Vicor’s offering of full, half, and quarter-brick modules feature a patented low noise design with the highest reliability and power density available. Fully encapsulated, Maxi, Mini and Micro series DC-DC converters utilize a proprietary spin fill process that assures complete, void free encapsulation making them suitable for the harshest environments. Two grades (H & M) are available with temperatures to -55°C operating and -65°C storage. H & M-Grade modules are qualified to the stringent environmental tests of MIL-STD-810 and MIL-STD-202 and undergo 100% Environment Stress Screening.

By combining technology from industry leaders Vicor and ATS, it can be ensured that DC-DC converters will have superior performance in the harshest environments, which is vital for military and aerospace applications.

To learn more about maxiFLOW Brick DC-DC converter heat sinks, please visit our Power Brick Heat Sink Page or email ats-hq@qats.com, or call us 781-769-2800.

ARM Microprocessors and ATS superGRIP: Attached at the Clip

Advanced Thermal Solutions, Inc., (ATS), has introduced a line of heat sinks compatible with the Sitara ARM Microprocessor family from Texas Instruments.

AM1707 from Texas Instruments

AM1707 from Texas Instruments

The Sitara ARM Microprocessors feature ARM Cortex-8 and ARM9 MPUs, which are used in a wide variety of Industrial, Medical, and Consumer Electronics applications.

The AM17x family consists of low-power ARM microprocessors that enable OEMs and ODMs to maximize product offerings by providing high processing performance life, advanced operating systems and rich user interfaces. Compatible operating systems include Neutrino, Integrity, Windows, Embedded CE, Linux, VXWorks and Android.

ATS patented maxiFLOW heat sinks with superGRIP clip attachment ensure long-term product reliability and maximum performance from the Sitara ARM Microprocessors. maxiFLOW high performance BGA heat sinks feature a low profile, spread fin array that maximizes surface area for more effective convection air cooling. The unique maxiFLOWTM design provides thermal performance that is 30-200% better than conventional heat sinks.

ATS' maxiFLOW Heat Sink with superGRIP Attachment

ATS’ maxiFLOW Heat Sink with superGRIP Attachment

maxiFLOW is available with pre-assembled phase change material, maxiGRIP clip attachments, and superGRIP clip attachments. The superGRIP attachment system features a plastic frame clip that fastens securely around the perimeter of a component and a metal spring clip that slips through a heat sinks fin field and locks securely to both ends of the plastic frame. The resulting superGRIP assembly applies steady even pressure to the component throughout the product lifecycle, improving thermal performance and long-term reliability. The ATS superGRIP heat sink attachment system permits the use of high performance phase changing thermal interface materials that improves heat transfer by as much as 20 times more than typical double-sided adhesive thermal tapes. It also allows for the heat sink to be detached and reattached without damaging the component or the PCB, an important feature for applications where PCB rework and ease of assembly and disassembly are important. The full range of ATS products compatible with Texas Instruments products can be viewed in the new heat sink selection tool on http://qats.com/Distributor/AE-Dist.php

To learn more about maxiFLOW heat sinks and the superGRIP clip attachment, please visit www.qats.com, email ats-hq@qats.com, or call 781-769-2800.

The New iFLOW-200 Tests and Measures the Thermal and Hydraulic Performance of Cold Plates

Advanced Thermal Solutions, Inc. (ATS) has released a new thermal test instrument, the iFLOW-200, which assesses the thermal and hydraulic characteristics of cold plates in electronics cooling. It can be used to simulate a wide range of conditions to optimize a cold plate’s performance before it is commercialized or prior to its use in an actual application.

 

The iFLOW-200 measures coolant temperatures from 0-70°C with the high accuracy of ± 1°C. Differential pressure of the coolant in the cold plate is measured up to 103,000 Pa (15 psi), with the precise accuracy of ± 1%. Distilled water is used as the reference coolant. For test comparisons, the systems coolingVIEW software can also calculate thermal resistance and pressure drop as a function of flow rate for selected liquids.

 

The instrument system includes a pair of K-type thermocouples for measuring temperature changes on the cold plate surface. Temperatures are monitored on the coolingVIEW interface.

 

The iFLOW-200 system features easy set up and operation to save time when evaluating different cold plate models. Designed for accuracy and convenience, the iFLOW-200 simply requires setting the starting and ending coolant flow rates, and choosing the dwell time, pumping power and other parameters. These are easily done on any PC using the systemd user-friendly application program.

The iFLOW-200 system features separate controller and hydraulics enclosures with USB connections. The hydraulic package includes a fluid level indicator, coolant inlets and outlets from/to the cold plate under test, ports for surface temperature thermocouples, and a fluid cooling system for its internal heat exchanger. The iFLOW-200 is also ideal for testing alternative liquids.

 

More information about the iFLOW-200 Cold Plate Characterization System can be found at http://www.qats.com/Products/Temperature-and-Velocity-Measurement/Instruments/iFLOW-200