Abstract
Systematic increase in computational power and continuous miniaturization of automotive electronic controllers pose a challenge to maintaining allowable temperature of semiconductor components, preventing premature wear-out or, in extreme cases, unacceptable shutdown of these devices. For these reasons, efficient and durable cooling systems are gaining importance in modern car technology design, showing critical influence on reliability of vehicle electronics. Vapor chambers (flat heat pipes) which could support heat management of automotive electronic controllers in the nearest future are passive devices, which transport heat through evaporation-condensation process of a working liquid. At present, vapor chambers are not commercially used in cooling systems of automotive controllers, being a subject of research and development endeavors aimed at understanding their influence on thermomechanical reliability of semiconductor devices used in cars. This paper presents a concept of an electronic controller aluminum housing integrated with a vapor chamber. The conceptual design was numerically validated in elevated temperature, typical for automotive ambient conditions. The paper discusses influence of the vapor chamber-based cooling system on the controller’s thermal performance, as well as on its reliability, expressed as the expected lifetime of the device.
Highlights
The concept of integrating vapor chamber into a housing of electronic devices for increased thermal reliability
Systematic increase in computational power and continuous miniaturization of automotive electronic controllers pose a challenge to maintaining allowable temperature of semiconductor components, preventing premature wear-out or, in extreme cases, unacceptable shutdown of these devices
This paper presents a concept of an electronic controller aluminum housing integrated with a vapor chamber
Summary
High-power electronic devices have been gaining more and more interest in the automotive industry. In order to make operation of these systems possible, new cooling solutions for vehicle electronics are being developed, which must meet the automotive requirements, that is, be thermally efficient, characterized by high degree of reliability and be low-cost, allowing for large scale production Such cooling systems must allow for dissipation of high density heat fluxes, being a result of generating several dozen of watts on a surface of a single semiconductor device die (typically, several square centimeters). Considering limited number of studies available in the public domain and dedicated to passive, two-phase cooling systems of vehicle controllers, this paper can be a valuable source of information for scientists and engineers working in the field of thermomechanical reliability of automotive-grade electronic devices.
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