Use of heat pipe/heat sink for thermal management of high performance CPUs

This paper will describe various cooling solutions in notebook PC and desktop/server applications. In the notebook PC application, miniature heat pipes of diameter 3-6 mm, flatten to desire thickness, are commonly used to improve heat spreading and more efficient transfer heat generated from the CPU to a remote heat dissipation area. Examples of three typical thermal solutions in notebook PC are given in this paper. Whereas in the desktop server application, flat type rectangular heat pipes or so-called vapor chambers are used to attach under the base of the heat sink to help temperature uniformity across the heat sink base. This will reduce the spreading resistance in the heat sink base and therefore improve the heat sink performance. Experimental results showed that with a vapor chamber installed can achieved a 45% improvement in the heat sink performance for heat sink of length 110 mm, width 72.5 mm, height 50 mm and base thickness 7 mm.