Project context and objective

In this project, you hold a position as a thermal-mechanical engineer in Intel Corporation, who is responsible for thermal design and thermal management for next-generation CPUs. As the CPUs become more powerful and smaller, Intel is facing an increasing challenge with the cooling and thermal management due to exponentially increasing power density. Your supervisor has assigned a project for you to propose a heat sink that can provide sufficient cooling performance for their next gen CPUs.

The learning objective for this project is to foster the ability for self-learning and report writing, which are two critical skills in engineering field. Practical engineering problems are often more complex than the problems we solve in class, and require more knowledge and data than those being taught in class. This project will offer you the opportunity to expand your knowledge and skill set as well as better prepare yourself to solve engineering problems you will face in future.

Background information

In electronic systems, a heat sink is a heat exchanger that cools a device by dissipating heat into the surrounding medium. In computers, heat sinks are used to cool central processing units (CPU) or graphics processors (GPU). Heat sinks are also used with high-power semiconductor devices such as power transistors and optoelectronics such as lasers and light emitting diodes, where efficient cooling and thermal management is critical to the device performance and reliability. A heat sink is designed to maximize the surface area and heat transfer coefficient between the device and the cooling medium surrounding it, such as the air. Fin design, fluid type and velocity, choice of fin material, and surface treatment are factors that affect the performance of a heat sink.

Project description and requirements

Review 5+ relevant articles (journal publications found in Web of Science or Google Scholar) on heat sink design for electronics cooling, and write a project paper (4-5 pages long) that includes the following sections:

1 Abstract

Highlight the key findings in your paper

2 Introductions

Introduce the background and context of this study

3 Paper main section, please include the following content:

• A comparison of different fin designs for a heat sink, such as plate fin, pin fin etc. Compare their heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop for forced convection cooling.

• Propose two cooling solutions (using convection cooling with heat sinks) that can achieve cooling heat flux of 2 KW/m2 and 200 KW/m2 respectively. These solutions should combine high heat transfer coefficient, low pressure drop, and reasonable cost. In your proposal, please recommend the fin material and find design, the cooling fluids, and the driving mechanism for the fluid flow. Use calculations to support your analysis. Summarize pertinent calculations and results with detailed calculations attached as an appendix.

4 Conclusions

Summarize the important conclusions and findings

5 References

List all the references cited in the paper using an appropriate format