Heat Pipes for Cooling High Flux/High Power Semiconductor Chips

Abstract

Results of an experimental study are reported which demonstrate the ability of heat pipes to simultaneously dissipate high heat fluxes and high total power at low surface temperatures. The application is to cooling high power density (and high total power) semiconductor chip modules. The two designs studied incorporate air or liquid cooling in the condenser sections. The air-cooled design consisted of a manifold base plate with a series of holes drilled in it each of which was lined with sintered copper powder which served as the wick. An array of wick lined tubes was attached normal to the plate and served as the condenser section. The other heat pipe was disk shaped and also had a sintered wick structure. Cooling water channels were placed over the entire periphery of the housing except in the region of heat input. Reported steady heat fluxes are up to 31 W/cm2 corresponding to total power dissipation of up to 1400 W for the water cooled heat pipe and up to 47 W/cm2 (900 W total power) for the air cooled heat pipe with surface temperatures under 100°C.