Liquid Cooling Utilizing a Hybrid Microchannel/Multi-Jet Heat Sink: A Component Level Study of Commercial Product

Abstract

Abstract The miniaturization of microelectronic devices and an increasing demand for faster computing results in high heat flux applications. By adopting direct liquid cooling, the high heat flux and high-power demands can be met. In this paper, thermo-hydraulic performance of a commercial hybrid micro-channel/multi-jet heat sink with water coolant was analyzed in detail. The copper microchannel heat sink with 3 mm fin height, fin thickness of 0.1 mm and channel width of 0.1 mm was used for removing heat flux from the chip surface area of 1″ × 1″(6.45 cm2). Water coolant was directed to microchannel fins by multiple slot jets, continuously providing impingement flow. A three-dimensional numerical simulation using commercial software 6sigmaET is carried out and validated with experimental results. The effects of the coolant inlet temperature and flow rate on the thermo-hydraulic performance was studied. CFD simulation was performed at inlet temperature of 29 °C, 36 °C, 50 °C and 60 °C. Flow rate was varied from 0.7 LPM to 3 LPM. Geometry optimization was performed, considering process of cutting the microchannel into pin fins. It was observed that the thermal resistance of pin-fins/multi-jet heat sink was reduced by 29.4 % as compared to original microchannel/multi-jet heat sink and without changing pressure drop significantly. In this specific heat sink design, the combination of multiple jets and pin fins leads to improvement of thermal performance as compared to micro-channel/multi-jet combination.