Heat sinks, fans and liquid cooling keep chips within limits.
Junction temperature T_j=T_a+P·R_θ(ja). Reduce thermal resistance with thermal interface materials, heat spreaders, heat sinks, fans, heat pipes, liquid cold plates and immersion cooling. Hot spots are managed by layout and throttling.
A 100 W GPU requires about 0.5 K/W total resistance to stay below 100 °C.
Electronics cooling keeps chips below their rated temperature, which decides reliability and performance, so thermal design is part of every electronic product.
Heat sinks, fans and liquid cooling keep chips within limits.
Electronics cooling keeps chips below their rated temperature, which decides reliability and performance, so thermal design is part of every electronic product.
The temperature of the semiconductor junction inside a device, which must stay below a maximum rating for reliable operation.
Multiply the device power by its total thermal resistance from junction to ambient and add the ambient temperature.
Typical applications include choosing a heat sink and fan for a graphics card, designing the cooling of a battery pack in an electric vehicle and estimating the junction temperature of a power module at full load.
Study "Heat pipes" first (topic 96 of 105 in Thermodynamics & Fluids). It covers the groundwork this topic builds on.
θ_jc, θ_cs, θ_sa series. Airflow design. Data centre PUE.
A 100 W GPU requires about 0.5 K/W total resistance to stay below 100 °C.
The next topic is "Building thermal analysis", which builds directly on this one.
It is classed as Advanced in Thermodynamics & Fluids (topic 97 of 105). It is an advanced topic. It assumes you are comfortable with the intermediate topics in Thermodynamics & Fluids.
Want to practise? Open the interactive course for quick checks, quizzes, simulations and progress tracking.