Infolytica Corporation announces MotorSolve v3 is available.

The new MotorSolve Thermal module is included with this latest version, giving motor designers a complete software tool which they can use to thoroughly evaluate the impact of temperature and different cooling methods on the performance of brushless, PMAC and induction machines. MotorSolve Thermal is a 3D automated-FEA analysis module that enhances the accuracy of MotorSolve's existing electromagnetic result computations by accounting for heating and cooling on performance as well as offering new temperature related outputs. It accounts for conduction, radiation and natural/forced convection heating or cooling. The MotorSolve user interface has been updated to include a full 3D view of the housing and the machine, giving a real time view of the design. The use of descriptive names and annotations on the model remove any guesswork as to the nature and impact of each parameter. This latest release is unlike other design software solutions on the market, as it eliminates the need to create two separate machine models for thermal and electromagnetic analysis. Within just one design environment, you can perform both types of analysis. There is no template matching or software linking. Just specify the motor and housing geometry, winding details, losses, materials and cooling type once in order to: Calculate temperatures using the losses from the magnetic analysis Perform the magnetic analyses taking into account the change in material properties due to the change in temperatures MotorSolve Thermal offers both steady state and duty cycle experimental condition. The extensive list of performance charts includes duty cycle losses, average or min/max temperatures and heat flux.

Liquid Cooling Is Coming To Chips and Boards Mar 26, 2008 5:55 PM by Lou Pechi, online columnist for Power Electronics Technology and president, STRATAStrategic Advisors, San Diego, Calif.

In a previous column, I tried to predict future trends in on-board power distribution, and the handling and distribution of input power to the various IC devices on the pc board. As each one of the devices keeps increasing in capability and performance, it also generates more and more heat. This article, will address methods of removing and dissipating the heat. Currently, most systems use an inefficient airflow method to remove heat from board-level devices. Improving heat transfer involves adding heatsinks with multiple fins to increase the surface area. With the increasing number of devices and their heatsinks sticking up in the air,
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great effort needs to be taken when laying out components on the pc board to prevent airflow shadowing by adjacent components. When shadowing occurs, downstream devicesinstead of getting cool airget the hot air left over from the hot upstream components. Some applications take the heat out of the ICs from the bottom using thermal VIAs. These vias are plated-through-holes that conduct the heat to other layers of the circuit board. Unfortunately, this method wastes valuable routing space on multilayer boards. So what are some alternative cooling solutions? One possibility is liquid cooling. Just like an automobile engine is cooled by circulating coolant through the hot engine and then dissipating that heat in the radiator, so too, a liquid (rather than air) may be circulated across a pc board to remove the heat from its components. But one of the main issues with liquid cooling on pc boards is that electrons and liquids do not mingle well. So solutions to prevent the comingling of the two will be required. Presently, there are applications where coolant is circulated through pipes placed close to the edge of the circuit board and away from the ICs. Here, copper extensions reach the ICs to remove the heat. This concept is described in the US Patent 4791983 abstract: A frame assembly for liquid-cooling, consisting of a frame and an array of heat dissipating surfaces, which can be positioned to overlie several IC packages Many of these solutions almost appear as an afterthought, just as a window air conditioner solves the overheating problem in a single room. To use the analogy of the building air-conditioning, what we need on the circuit board, is a central air-conditioning system. Such a system must be designed at the beginning of the pc-board design to solve heating problems before they appear. As the power density of high-performance ICs increases, device cooling is becoming a more significant concern. Conventional forced air-cooling techniques will be unable to meet the needs of future power-hungry devices especially 3-D multichip modules that pack more processing power into less space. Cooling high-power electronic devices dissipating more than 300 W/cm2 at the die is beyond the capability of most conventional air- or liquid-cooling solutions. A new technique for fabricating liquid cooling channels onto the backs of high-performance integrated circuits could allow denser packaging of chips while providing better temperature control and improved reliability. Some liquid cooling techniques are already in production or at a research stage, circulating liquid through separate cooling modules attached to the integrated circuits, or through micro channels fabricated onto the back of chips using high-temperature bonding techniques. One such cooling method developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology includes polymer pipes. These pipes allow electronic and cooling interconnections that can be used in automated conventional microelectronic manufacturing processes without damage to the integrated circuits. This compact solution transfers cooling liquid directly into a giga-scale integrated (GSI) chip, and is fully compatible with conventional flip-chip packaging.
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Future printed circuit designs, in addition to the electronic board layout discipline, will require a new, presently rare, fluidic layout specialist discipline. For their part, IC manufacturers will also need to develop devices that can interface with the on-board fluid distribution systems to provide fluid circulation within the integrated circuits.

EPRI To Evaluate Adding Solar Thermal Energy To Coal Plants Feb 11, 2009 4:14 PM PET News Staff

NEWS & FEATURES FROM AUTO ELECTRONICS Committed to improving hybrid electric cars New Motors for Hybrid Vehicles Battery Firms Battle for Hybrid Hegemony Innovative Bipolar Plates for Fuel Cells See More Headlines TOP ARTICLES Exploring Current Transformer Applications Ultracapacitor Technology Powers Electronic Circuits Buck-Converter Design Demystified Sensorless Motor Control Simplifies Washer Drives PET RESOURCES Buyer's Guide Conferences Engineering Jobs Power Electronics Events Rent Our Lists Spotlight on Digital Power The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) announced that it has launched the second of two projects to help electric power companies add solar energy to fossil-fueled electric power plants, reducing fuel costs and plant emissions. Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association, Inc., Progress Energy and Southern Company are participating in the project. The case study analyses will be performed by WorleyParsons Group, Inc. Both this project, and a parallel study launched in October, 2008 at natural gas-fueled facilities, involve adding steam generated by a solar thermal field to a conventional fossil fuel-powered steam cycle to offset some of the fuel required to generate electric power. As part of the coal
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project, case studies will be conducted at Tri-State's 245-megawatt (MW) Escalante Generating Station in Prewitt, NM and at Progress Energy's 742-MW Mayo Plant in Roxboro, NC. "These projects will demonstrate a near-term and cost-effective way to use large amounts of solar energy at commercial scale to provide clean electric power," said Dr. Bryan Hannegan, vice president of Generation and Environment at EPRI. "These 'hybrid power plants' will combine the low-cost reliability of existing fossil power plants with the environmental benefit of renewables, and help companies meet federal and state mandates to reduce their emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases with renewable energy." The projects will provide a conceptual design study and two detailed case studies. Design options to retrofit existing plants will be analyzed and new plant design options will be identified. EPRI will rely on its expertise in solar technologies, steam cycles, and plant operation, as well as past solar and fossil plant studies. EPRI holds two patents in solar steam cycle optimization. Currently, 27 states in the U.S. have enacted renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policies. Some include specific mandates that a percentage of the requirement be met with solar energy. However, most current solar applications are not cost-competitive with other power generating options. Using solar to augment coal or natural gas potentially is the lowest-cost option for adding solar power to the generation fleet, as it utilizes existing plant assets. And because the highest-intensity solar energy typically is within a few hours of peak summer loads, it makes solar augmented steam cycles a particularly attractive renewable energy option.

A North Carolina State University researcher has developed a more efficient, less expensive way of cooling electronic devices - particularly devices that generate a lot of heat, such as lasers and power devices. The technique uses a "heat spreader" made of a copper-graphene composite, which is attached to the electronic device using an indium-graphene interface film "Both the copper-graphene and indium-graphene have higher thermal conductivity, allowing the device to cool efficiently," says Dr. Jag Kasichainula, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and author of a paper on the research. Thermal conductivity is the rate at which a material conducts heat. In fact, Kasichainula found that the copper-graphene film's thermal conductivity allows it to cool approximately 25 percent faster than pure copper, which is what most devices currently use. Dissipating heat from electronic devices is important, because the devices become unreliable when they become too hot. The paper also lays out the manufacturing process for creating the copper-graphene composite, using an electrochemical deposition process. "The copper-graphene composite is also low-cost and easy to produce," Kasichainula says. "Copper is expensive, so replacing some of the copper with graphene actually lowers the overall cost."
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The paper, "Thermal Conductivity of Copper-Graphene Composite Films Synthesized by Electrochemical Deposition with Exfoliated Graphene Platelets," is published in Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B. The research was funded by the National Science Foundatio Cooling Trends Direct Efficient Thermal Design Jun 1, 2002 12:00 PM By Sam Davis, Editor, Power Electronics Technology

Cooling solutions such as heatsinks, fans, heat spreaders, and thermal gap fillers help keep temperatures within the specified limits, ensuring efficient operation of power electronics systems.

NEWS & FEATURES FROM AUTO ELECTRONICS Committed to improving hybrid electric cars New Motors for Hybrid Vehicles Battery Firms Battle for Hybrid Hegemony Innovative Bipolar Plates for Fuel Cells See More Headlines TOP ARTICLES Exploring Current Transformer Applications Ultracapacitor Technology Powers Electronic Circuits Buck-Converter Design Demystified Sensorless Motor Control Simplifies Washer Drives PET RESOURCES Buyer's Guide Conferences Engineering Jobs Power Electronics Events Rent Our Lists Spotlight on Digital Power With more electronic functions embedded into systems, power dissipation increases and makes thermal design more critical. To ensure system reliability, it's imperative to keep all components operating within safe temperature limits. Among the available thermal management products for cooling electronic systems are coolers, heatsinks, heat spreaders, thermal gap fillers, fans, temperature measurement devices, and CAD/CAE software that verifies the system's thermal design.

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Heatsinks are among the most widely used thermal management products. A new series of heatsinks, Therma-Vent by Thermacore, uses enhanced fin technology to increase the heatsink surface area and create turbulent airflow to disperse heat more efficiently. Using a new rolled and slit fin technology to maximize surface area, the flow of heat from the chip into the local ambient air increases (Photo 1). They reduce mass, have less system volume, and cost less, compared with traditional extrusions and folded fin products. Brazed attachment of the fins to base ensures mechanical and thermal joint integrity and minimizes the chance of cracks forming, as can happen with an epoxy bond. The company is initially launching a standard active Therma-Vent heatsink solution for the Pentium 4 processor (Socket 478). Derivative devices for desktop and notebook computers, embedded applications, communications equipment, and other electronics cooling applications can be rapidly customized for quick time to market. Cool Innovations employs different technology with its UltraCool IV pin fin heatsinks that employ forged, highly conductive, oxygen-free copper (Photo 2, on page 48) intended to cool devices dissipating high heat loads. They are omni-directional, allowing efficient cooling because of their pin fin structure and use of highly conductive copper. The pin fin structure provides a large surface area that's effective with slow and moderate airflows (100 LFM to 400 LFM). The use of oxygen-free copper provides a thermal conductivity premium of 20% over pure aluminum and a 40% premium over other aluminum extrusion alloys. These heatsinks' footprint range is 0.25 in. 0.25 in. to 1.5 in. 1.5 in. and from an overall height of 0.15 in. to 0.8 in. Pin diameter ranges from 0.06 in. to 0.125 in. The heatsinks are offered with a mechanical spring-clip suitable for various package types. R-Theta's Fabfin series of aluminum heatsinks now has embedded heat pipes. This allows an engineered solution to common heat spreading issues created by higher power electronic devices. This process embeds heat pipes in the heatsink's baseplate, resulting in a cost-effective solution that doesn't significantly increase weight. With the added advantage of a patented swaging process for high-performance, high-ratio solutions, this represents an efficient heatsink when used with forced air for many thermal cooling applications. The fabrication process is identical for any aluminum FabFin heatsink and is offered on MF and AF fin spacing (3.43 mm and 5.49 mm), respectively. Another variation for R-Theta's Fabfin heatsinks is an added copper inlay. This new technique improves heat spreading in high power electronic devices. The technique allows standard aluminum baseplates with embedded copper material in selected areas to accommodate specific heat spreading needs. The design allows selection of copper thickness according to dissipation requirements. Previously, engineers had to use expensive and heavy full-copper-based solutions to solve heat-spreading problems. These inlay solutions have the added advantage of a patented swaging process, for high-performance, high-ratio capability. This is an efficient FabFin heatsink when used with forced air cooling. Coolers

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Enertron offers a Compact Cooler for power electronics applications with limited space. It dissipates as much as 150W in a 155 mm 45 mm 25 mm space (Photo 3). Due to the space constraint, the heat is carried from the heat source to the heatsink using heat pipes. The heatsink consists of highly efficient, thin, copper fins through which the heat pipes pass. Two 40 mm 40 mm axial fans provide the required airflow. The total thermal resistance of this cooler is 0.60C/W. The heat collector and heatsink are mechanically joined with the aluminum housing, preventing stress on the heat pipes. The two fans are fastened to the housing to create a single thermal solution ready to be installed into the system. Use of heat pipes provides design flexibility. You can adjust heat pipe length and orientation to suit other applications, such as all-in-one desktop computers, enclosure cooling, telecom laser cooling, etc. JMC's new SkyJet 60 CPU cooler features a patented Dual-Pass Airflow architecture from Agilent (Photo 4, on page 50). Designed specifically for future Intel Pentium 4 desktop and server processors, it can handle up to 75W. It's a radial fin heatsink that utilizes dual-pass airflow by taking air in from the top and all sides of the heatsink, creating a vacuum and expelling added airflow through the bottom of the heatsink. The cooler exhibits 0.32C/W of thermal resistance with thermal interface material. It contains a top-mounted, high-speed 60 mm 25 mm, 5000 rpm dc fan that supplies 25 cfm. The heatsink mounts to standard microprocessor sockets, including Socket 478 and Socket 603. The assembly is 57 mm (H) 69 mm (D) and weighs 290 g, providing a compact design with efficient airflow and minimum noise levels. Thermal Interface Material The interface between the heated device and the heatsink are critical to thermal management solutions. This interface must provide optimized thermal conductivity while providing electrical isolation between the two mating surfaces. In addition, the material used in the interface must be able to accommodate surfaces that are not perfectly flat. Silicone grease has been used for this purpose, but new substances are easier and cleaner to handle while providing competitive thermal resistance. Thermoset, Lord Chemical Products has developed a new thermal interface material: MT-315. This low stress adhesive has a bulk thermal conductivity of 7.3W/mK and can achieve bondline thicknesses of 1.5 mils to 2 mils. MT-315 exhibits very low thermal resistance, low contact resistance and highly effective conductivity when tested in package. The result is a lower contribution of the adhesive to the overall thermal budget. MT-315 was specifically developed for high-power devices to bridge the gap between commercially available thermal interface materials and solder. It exhibits excellent adhesion to a variety of substrates including gold, silicon, ceramic, and nickel. Its minimal shrinkage and superior adhesion result in excellent resistance to delamination and degradation in the thermal pathway during reliability testing. This adhesive is engineered for lid attach on Flip Chip assemblies, to be used as the die to heat spreader thermal interface, as well as perimeter adhesive. Its excellent electrical conductivity makes MT-315 well suited for grounding and RF shielding on a high-speed, high-power semiconductor. MT-315 is engineered to provide a high7|Page

performance interface solution where a mechanical attach isn't possible or desired. At 25C, it has a viscosity of 85,000 cps at 2 rpm and is suited for syringe dispense or printing operations. Fujipoly of America Corp. supplies the SARCON XR-e and XR-j thermal gap filler pads that feature excellent thermal conductivity, thermal resistance, consistency, and elasticity. These silicone gel sheets are well suited for filling air gaps and uneven surfaces in a variety of electronic designs, including the computer, consumer, communications, automotive and industrial applications. These thermal gap filler pads have thermal conductivity of 11W/m-K and 14W/m-K, respectively. The thermal conductivity produces thermal resistance of 0.11 in.2/W to 0.14 in.2/W for the SARCON XR-e and 0.09 in.2/W to 0.12 in.2/W for the SARCON XR-j. Both Thermal Gap Filler Pads have flame retardancy that satisfies UL94 V-0 class. Made from silicone compound, the pads are flexible enough to conform to a variety of design considerations, such as tolerance backups and multiple component heights. They can easily adhere to components in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, including protrusions and recessed areas and are also available in custom die-cut pieces. When mounted on substrates or at heatsink junctions, they can virtually eliminate thermal impedance, yielding higher temperature transfer gradients. The latest thermal management product from the Bergquist Co. is Hi-Flow 225UT phasechange material. HF225UT is a non-reinforced phase-change composite offered in square or rectangular die-cut parts on a continuous roll of polyester carrier liner. A pressure-sensitive adhesive strip facilitates the room temperature applications to the heatsink and a clear covering protects the material during handling and shipping. A colored tab makes it easy to peel-placepress the heatsink to the power semiconductor. A key advantage of Hi-Flow 225UT is that it requires no heatsink preheating for application. This is an important benefit, as heatsink manufacturers don't need to add a preheat oven to their assembly line when using this material. As a phase-change material, HF225UT flows at 55C and requires a moderate 10 psi to 20 psi to fully wet-out the interface. AOS' new line of dry-to-the-touch thermal interface materials include Micro-faze thermal interface film and Sure-form gap filler materials. These materials offer thermal grease performance with low thermal resistance, but with the handling convenience of thermal pads and gap fillers. Micro-faze isn't a phase change material. It's a non-wax-based material that begins working at room temperature, and it's naturally tacky so material sticks to components without an adhesive but it's easy to remove for reworking. Plus, it requires minimum force to achieve total surface wetting. It's available in two variations: Type A (0.018C-in.2/W/mil) is thermally conductive and Type K (0.03C-in.2/W/mil) is thermally conductive and electrically insulating. Both versions are offered in sheets and rolls and can be die-cut to any size and shape. Sure-form gap filler material is a non-silicone, dry thermal grease material developed for use on uneven or irregular surfaces. It conforms to any size or shape with minimum pressure and offers the performance of thermal grease.

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Fan Cooling New from Kooltronic is the Kooltray II tray of fans that fit in a 19-in. rack and operate from 115Vac or 230Vac, 50 Hz/60 Hz, or 12Vac, 24Vac or 48Vac. At 1-in. high, they fit under card racks or heat-producing sources (Photo 5). Standard units are available in 1, 2, or 3 row(s) of fans. Optional features include thermal fan speed control, fan failure indication and alarm output, dc power supply, and filtered fan tray. Another option monitors individual fan operation with an integral solid state alarm system that emits an alarm for power loss or low fan speed, as indicated by the associated LED for that fan. Also an option is a temperature-sensing control that modulates the speed of the fans as temperature varies; it includes an alarm that signals power loss or high temperature. Fans have ball bearing motors and are UL/CSA/VDE/TUV rated for 20C to 70C. Parvus uses fans in a different way with its PC/104 Environmental Fan Card that's PC/104system compatible. With an intelligent temperature sensor, the card closely controls the environmental characteristics of an enclosure by providing internally circulated air and monitoring internal chassis conditions, based on temperature and external analog inputs. It contains two 5V fans that operate in a push-pull configuration to move air in a circular cooling pattern around itself and adjacent PC/104 boards. If desired, each of the fans can be reversed to create a push-push or pull-pull movement of air. Together with the analog inputs, the card includes multiple digital inputs, outputs, and connections to external temperature sensors, allowing it to control complex environmental management schemes. In an enclosed chassis system, this thermal management card can cool up to four adjoining boards; in open air, it can cool two PC/104 boards. If you want to measure the airflow in an air-cooled system, you might want to use the Cambridge Accusense CAFS XS series of air velocity and air temperature sensors that are temperature compensated from 0C to 70C. Their small size minimizes obstructions between components on a crowded circuit board. When positioning sensors in the flow, it's important that they don't obstruct or redirect the airflow. A small sensor, such as the CAFS series, minimizes obstructions and provides more precise readings. Shaped like a blade, the CAFS XS sensors may be positioned parallel to the flow of air. Their small size allows them to be inserted in the gaps between fins of wider heatsinks. Also intended for 19-in. rack-mounting are Lytron's systems that provide up to 2100W of cooling capacity (Photo 6). Rack mounting reduces the floor space requirement and improves the overall system compactness. They are available with copper, stainless steel, and aluminum heat exchangers and are compatible with a variety of cooling fluids, such as water, deionized water, EGW, and oil. You can insert the unit into a rack, make the electrical and fluid connections, and it's ready for operation. Three different cooling capacities, 500W, 1300W, 2100W, are available with electrical and pump options to customize the system. These systems are used in a variety of applications including cooling lasers, semiconductor capital equipment, analytical instruments, and medical equipment. Cool Plastics

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Effective thermal heat management in power electronics has become a key consideration. New thermally conductive plastics, introduced by Cool Polymers are growing in popularity because they are 40% lighter than aluminum, injection moldable into a wide variety of parts, and between 100 to 500 times more conductive than conventional plastic. Parts made with thermally conductive plastics manage heat and lower overall temperatures. In addition, these plastics provide dimensional stability, low thermal expansion, low thermal resistance, and intricate design features. The thermally conductive plastics can be developed with any base resin (commodity or engineered) and are electrically conductive and insulative. These plastics also provide excellent EMI/RF shielding. Power resistors, made with thermally conductive plastic (Photo 7), provide low thermal resistance, manage and dissipate high temperatures, provide electrical insulation, and can be manufactured in reel-to-reel volume production. Software Solutions CAD/CAE software can simplify thermal management design. New Dynamic Soft Analysis is the BETAsoft Integrated Component/Board Thermal Analysis. It allows for simultaneous thermal design of the component and analysis of the board environment. The design of the component includes the variations of material, configuration, and the use of heatsinks. At the same time, the board thermal analysis considers the component placement, board structure, air speed, and cooling enhancements. Very accurate results of simulation provide advanced component/board design with assured performance. Fluent Inc.'s IcePak 4.0 provides thermal management CAD/CAE software, which employs an assembly level meshing approach that groups objects into assemblies, meshing IC packages and heatsinks, and meshing the assembly and the rest of the solution domain separately. It introduces Model Manager that manages the creation, edits, replication, and other object functions; assemblies; libraries; and problem/project configurations and settings. The Advanced Object Wizards creates heatsink configurations, IC packages (PBGAs, TBGAs, QFPs, etc.), fans with 3D housings and hubs, heatsinks, enclosures, and p. c. boards. Four-Window viewing, a third new feature, simultaneously displays complex 3-D models from four viewpoints, with on-screen view controls.

Facing Thermal Solutions with Heat Pipe Technology Aug 1, 2002 12:00 PM By Enisa Harris, Enertron Inc., Mesa, Ariz.

Heat pipes reduce the space required to ensure remote heat transfer, improve thermal efficiency, and add little weight to the solution.

NEWS & FEATURES FROM AUTO ELECTRONICS

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New challenges facing thermal management include an increasing need for remote heat dissipation as well as more efficient thermal solutions with low weight, low cost, and high reliability. Heat pipes are increasingly filling this role. To keep up with today's thermal solution challenges, heat pipes must improve efficiency and integrate remote heat transfer into thermal management solutions. Heat Pipe Characteristics A heat pipe is a vacuumed vessel charged with working fluid (Fig. 1). The walls of the heat pipe are lined with a wick structure that allows liquid to travel from one end of the heat pipe to the other via capillary action. Heat added to one end of the heat pipe, called the evaporator end, causes the working fluid to evaporate or change phase from liquid to vapor. The vapor travels through the center of the pipe to the other end the condenser end where a heatsink or other means remove the heat energy. The release of heat causes the vapor to condense back to liquid for the wick to absorb. The liquid working fluid is carried in the wick by capillary action back to the evaporator zone. Factors such as wick, working fluid, bending, flattening, and orientation can influence heat pipe performance. The four common, commercially produced heat pipe wick structures are groove, wire mesh, powder metal, and fiber/spring. Different wicks have varying capillary limits, the rate at which the working fluid travels from condenser to evaporator influence the overall heat pipe performance. The orientation of a heat pipe also plays an important role in its performance. The performance of a heat pipe under specific orientations is directly related to its wick structure. For example, the groove wick has the lowest capillary limit but works best under gravity-assisted conditions, where the evaporator is located below the condenser. The type of working fluid also influences heat pipe performance. A heat pipe is not functional when its temperature is below the freezing point or above the vapor condensation point of the working fluid. When the temperature is above the vapor condensation point of the working fluid, the vapor will not condense back to liquid phase. This causes the heat pipe to stall, because no fluid circulation occurs. Flattening or bending the heat pipe may reduce the amount of heat that can be transported and is another important design issue. Applications In conventional use, heat pipes are integrated into a total thermal subsystem to transport heat from the heat source to remote areas. The heat pipes' ability to act as a primary heat conductive path allows engineers to solve thermal problems in applications with space constraints or other limitations. Thus, you can use heat pipes to carry heat away from the heat-sensitive components to the finned array or a heatsink located in an area where more space for heat dissipation is allowed leaving room for electronics layout flexibility. A high-capacity power electronics cooler (Fig. 2) is an example of a thermal solution where no sufficient space was available to directly mount a finned heatsink to the heat source. Eight high11 | P a g e

capacity heat pipes form an efficient thermal path to the fin array, which dissipates heat using forced convection. The cooler can dissipate 800W. In addition to acting as a heat conductive path and aiding in remote heat transfer, heat pipes can improve thermal solution efficiency. You can accomplish this by embedding heat pipes into the heatsink base or passing the heat pipes through the fins. In most cases, embedding heat pipes into the conventional thermal solution results in size or weight reduction. The most appropriate application for heat pipe integration into the heatsink base is when the base is large compared with the heat source. In such applications, the heat source location produces the highest temperature. The smaller the heat source, the more spreading has to occur over the heatsink base, resulting in a greater temperature rise in the center of the base. Integrating heat pipes into the base of the heatsink decreases the temperature gradient across the base, yielding a more efficient solution. You can also improve heatsink fin efficiency with heat pipe integration. Fin efficiency is related to the rate at which the fin can dissipate heat energy. The maximum rate at which the fin can dissipate energy is the rate that would exist if the fin were at base temperature. Therefore, the efficiency of the fin can be improved by passing a heat pipe through the fin (Fig. 3). Compared with the traditional finned heatsink, the use of a heat pipe configuration in Fig. 3 reduces footprint area of the power heat sink and improves heat dissipation capability. While external factors such as shock, vibration, force impact, thermal shock, and corrosive environment can affect heat pipe life, its integration into a thermal solution also delivers many benefits. If manufactured and designed properly, heat pipes are highly reliable and have no moving parts. Also, heat pipes are economical, having little effect on the overall cost of the total thermal solution. For more information on this article, CIRCLE 336 on Reader Service Card

Package Development Goes with the (Air) Flow Nov 1, 2004 12:00 PM David Morrison, Editor

With the pace of improvements in silicon slowing, power MOSFET manufacturers continue to focus their attention on device packaging. Engineers attending this month's industry events the Electronica show in Germany and the Power Electronics Technology conference in Chicago will discover further evidence of this trend as vendors unveil new transistors in advanced surface-mount packages.
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In recent years, semiconductor vendors have been busy redesigning packages such as the SO-8 to reduce parasitics and lower thermal resistance, enabling low-voltage power MOSFETs to handle higher levels of current with greater efficiency. One characteristic being exploited in new package designs is double-sided (topside) cooling. Rather than simply dumping all of their devices' heat into the pc board, packages with doublesided cooling allow heat to escape from the top of the package. By itself, this feature increases the power that can be dissipated in a given footprint, but that advantage can be amplified by the use of forced air cooling and heatsinks. Some of the initial uses for MOSFETs with double-sided cooling have been in VRMs and embedded dc-dc converters on motherboards. However, MOSFET vendors are exploring other opportunities for double-sided cooling as evidenced by some of this month's trade show activities. For example, Vishay Siliconix will unveil its version of double-sided cooling, the PowerPAK. With its SO-8 footprint, this encapsulated lead-frame-based package bears close resemblance to a standard SO-8. However, a cutout in the encapsulation on top of the PolarPAK exposes a metal die-attach pad that may be connected externally to a heatsink (see page 56 for related article). Trade show attendees also will get a look at additions to International Rectifier's DirectFET family of devices. The company will introduce 40-V and 100-V MOSFETs in the DirectFET package, extending its application in networking, telecom and high-end computing applications. In addition, in a paper being presented at the Power Electronics Technology conference, Fairchild Semiconductor will discuss findings related to its BGA power package, which is also the subject of an article in this issue (see page 48). These product developments and discussions only scratch the surface of vendors' efforts to deliver double-sided cooling. Another company, Philips Semiconductor, is considering creating a new version of its LFPAK (co-developed with Hitachi, now Renesas Technology) to enhance its suitability for topside cooling. According to the company, the LFPAK in its current form may be topside cooled through the thin layer of plastic encapsulation that covers the source contact. But Philips Semiconductor is now performing thermal modeling on an inverted LFPAK in which an exposed drain contact would appear on the top of the device. This package could be useful for applications where designers want to limit heat dissipated in the PCB. An inverted LFPak could be introduced as early as next year. Infineon intends to introduce a MOSFET package with double-sided cooling next year. Meanwhile, other vendors may be entering the fray as new-package licensees. With the introduction of PolarPAK, Vishay Siliconix is announcing a second-source agreement, and earlier in the year, Fairchild Semiconductor licensed its BGA technology to GEM services. During the next few years, there will be much jockeying among MOSFET vendors as each seeks to establish its package as the successor to the SO-8. Customers will need to sort out the various vendor claims and determine which packages work best in their applications.

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But beyond the choice of packaging, there's a great opportunity for designers to apply creative thermal management techniques in their power-supply designs. Simply slapping a low-cost extrusion on top of a row of MOSFETs may not always be the best approach to cooling in spite of cost pressures to do so. Perhaps now is the time for semiconductors vendors, customers and thermal management specialists to find creative ways to optimize MOSFET performance by applying the latest innovations in thermal interface materials, heatsinks and fans. This level of collaboration may be necessary to ward off future design bottlenecks as power demands continue to rise.

Thermal Materials Solve Power Electronics Challenges Feb 1, 2006 12:00 PM By Carl Zweben, Ph.D., Advanced Thermal Materials Consultant, Devon, Pa.

The thermal properties of advanced materials used in heat spreaders and heatsinks provide new options for power system designers.

NEWS & FEATURES FROM AUTO ELECTRONICS Committed to improving hybrid electric cars New Motors for Hybrid Vehicles Battery Firms Battle for Hybrid Hegemony Innovative Bipolar Plates for Fuel Cells See More Headlines TOP ARTICLES Exploring Current Transformer Applications Ultracapacitor Technology Powers Electronic Circuits Buck-Converter Design Demystified Sensorless Motor Control Simplifies Washer Drives PET RESOURCES Buyer's Guide Conferences Engineering Jobs Power Electronics Events Rent Our Lists Spotlight on Digital Power Thermal management deals with problems arising from heat dissipation, thermal stresses and warping. It is critical in the packaging of power semiconductors and other microelectronic and
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optoelectronic devices, including microprocessors, high-power RF devices, laser diodes and light-emitting diodes (LEDs).[1-2] Intel's acknowledgement that it has hit a thermal wall highlights the severity of the problem.[2] Laptop heating has increased to the point where, in one case, medical treatment was required.[3] Further evidence of the thermal problem is Apple's new Computer Power Mac G5 desktop, which has an automotive-like pumped liquid-cooling system. Replacing convection cooling with liquid cooling requires the addition of new manufacturing and servicing infrastructures, and raises significant reliability and cost issues. Heat dissipation is currently the key factor-limiting power levels. It will have to be solved in order to meet the wellpublicized heat flux goal of 1000 W/cm2 required for future military systems like the all-electric ship. Thermal stresses and warpage in electronic components arise primarily from different coefficients of thermal expansion (CTEs). The increasing use of lead-free solders, which have much higher processing temperatures than lead-tin types, exacerbates the problem. Note that even when liquid cooling is used, thermal stresses caused by CTE mismatches are still important. Semiconductors and ceramics have CTEs in the range of 2 ppm/K to 7 ppm/K. The CTEs of copper, aluminum and glass fiber-reinforced polymer pc boards are much higher. Decades-old traditional low-CTE materials like copper/tungsten (Cu/W), copper/molybdenum (Cu/Mo), copper-Invar-copper (Cu/I/Cu) and copper-molybdenum-copper (Cu/Mo/Cu) have high densities and thermal conductivities that are little or no better than that of aluminum (Table 1). We call these first-generation thermal management materials. Table 1 also shows an improved first-generation material, a laminate consisting of Cu-Mo bonded to outer copper layers (Cu/Cu-Mo/Cu). When both weight and thermal conductivity are important, a useful figure of merit is specific thermal conductivity (thermal conductivity divided by density or, in this case, specific gravity, which is dimensionless), as introduced by me and K.A. Schmidt many years ago.[4] All of the tables in this article include this property, which can provide a good estimate of potential weight reduction (higher is better). When aluminum and copper are used for heat dissipation, significant design compromises are typically required, which can significantly reduce cooling efficiency. For example, to minimize thermal stresses, it is common to use compliant polymeric thermal interface materials (TIMs) to attach high-CTE heatsinks. It is widely recognized that TIMs increasingly account for most of the system total thermal resistance.[5] The high thermal resistance of TIMs can be overcome by direct solder attach, but this can result in high thermal stresses. At present, the key way to work around this issue is to employ soft solders, typically Indium based, which have low yield stresses. However, these solders also have poor thermal fatigue and metallurgical characteristics. Use of materials with matching CTEs allows the packaging design engineer to select from a wider range of solders. Low-CTE solders, now under development, will further alleviate the thermal stress problem. Weight is a key consideration in most portable systems, including notebook computers, cell phones, hybrid automobile electronics and avionics. Even if system weight is not important, lowdensity materials are needed for components like heatsinks to minimize shock-load stresses during shipping. New high-performance third-generation materials developed in the last few
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years have ultrahigh thermal conductivities, low CTEs and low densities that can solve key packaging problems, including reducing the CTE and increasing thermal conductivity of pc boards. When the low-CTE solders under development are commercialized, it will be possible to match the CTEs of virtually all packaging materials.

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