Electronics Packaging Cooling: Technologies From Gas Turbine Engine Cooling

Abstract

Heat transfer in turbomachinery has been well established due to the long history of research in the field. A vast amount of research has been devoted to obtain flow fields and regimes, heat transfer modes, surface effects, and heat transfer enhancement techniques. Since most of the flows are in the turbulent regime of air cooling, various heat transfer enhancements such as turbulators, pin fins, concavities, and lattice cooling have been investigated. The electronics industry has shown a rapid increase in the functionality, speed, and the density of transistors, leading to a large increase in the required heat transfer. Most of the flows are in the transitional regime. Heat sinks are the primary choice for thermal management in electronics systems. Enhancements in heat sinks have been limited to taller and tighter fin spacing, while decreasing the weight and the cost. Current state-of-the-art for heat sinks in electronics components is lacking in heat transfer enhancement technologies, which is common in turbine heat transfer practice. Therefore, the primary goal of this paper is to examine the turbomachinery cooling technologies and to inform the packaging engineers about the thermal technologies on the other side of the thermal world.