Microelectronic chip cooling: an experimental assessment of a liquid-passing heat sink,a microchannel heat rejection module,and a microchannel-based recirculating-liquid cooling system

Results of heat transfer testing of heat absorption modules (HAM), heat rejection modules (HRM), and a recirculating-liquid cooling system are reported. Low-profile, Cu-based, microchannel heat exchangers (MHEs) were fabricated and used as the HAM as well as components for assembly of a microchannel HRM. Detailed experimental assessment of two different liquid-passing HRMs and a microchannel-based recirculating-liquid cooling system was carried out, and benchmarked against all-solid devices of the same geometric dimensions. Incorporating microchannel liquid flow through each fin, the device-level heat transfer performance of the microchannel HRM was improved by up to ~50%. Detailed testing of a microchannel-based recirculating-liquid cooling system indicate that low-profile Cu MHEs are highly effective in heat flux removal while having a small area/volume footprint, and that enhancing the HRM performance is critical to boosting the overall performance of such recirculating-liquid cooling systems.