Advances in Integrated Heat Pipe Technology for Printed Circuit Boards

Designing thermal control systems for electronic products has become very challenging due to the continuous miniaturization and increasing performance demands. Two-phase cooling solutions, such as heat pipes or vapor chambers, are increasingly used as they offer higher thermal coefficients for heat transfer. Following a multidisciplinary and integrative design approach, new concepts for two-phase cooling solutions for printed circuit boards are explored. This paper shows that by integrating thermal design criteria early in the total design phase, a radical new way of thermal control can be achieved. A new design to integrate heat pipe technology with printed circuit board technology is presented. This concept improves the overall design flexibility of the electronic product significantly and thermal control is realized and manufactured in a more integrated way. Altogether this allows engineers to design a printed circuit board with full integration of thermal control functionality.