Thermal analysis of notebook personal computer

This paper describes a thermal analysis of a notebook personal computer (PC). A numerical analysis was carried out for the whole domain of the PC, excluding display portion. The numerical model includes Si chips, packages, printed circuit boards (PCBs), casing, etc. In the design of a notebook PC, dead space is kept to a minimum, so the characteristic length for Rayleigh number, which represents the property of the heat transfer between components inside the cabinet is lower than its critical value, and natural convection does not occur inside the PC. Hence, thermal analysis can be performed by heat conduction analysis. To reduce computational load, thermal analysis was divided in two stages and calculation was performed on an EWS. Measured and calculated temperature rise of the electronic parts showed good agreement. This led to the conclusion that the present thermal analysis method can be a useful tool for the design of notebook PCs.