Design of a Test Facility and Micro-Channel Heat Exchanger Prototype for High Power Electronic Components

Increased processing speed, miniaturisation and higher packing densities of electronic processing chips has lead to the development of high power, high heat flux electronics cards used by the telecom and server industries to process digital signals. The drive towards higher system performance has put a large demand on forced air convection cooling techniques and is heading towards the thermal limit of the technology. Thermal management is becoming the limiting factor in the development of higher power electronic devices. To meet future heat transfer demands, innovative methods of thermally managing electronic devices are required. This paper looks at the creation of a test facility and single phase, prototype microchannel heat exchanger design to cool high power silicon and optical chips.