Auxilliary embedded coolant channels for peltier based liquid cooling solution for high power components

The ever-rising amount of data transferred between data centers and clients requires more computational power than ever. Temperature control requirements, such as set-point range and accuracy, during validation testing of high power components remain unchanged, creating a design challenge for thermal solutions. In addition, thermal solutions must remain within small footprints in order to fit the increasingly dense testing board. Thermal solutions based on Thermo-Electric Cooler (TEC) modules have been found to be a very flexible low cost solution with good thermal performance and easy temperature control. The cooling performance of a TEC is directly related to its size and number of Peltier elements. Therefore, high cooling capacities require a very large device foot-print which may not conform to design space constraints. This paper describes an empirical study which investigates the feasibility and performance of a TEC based thermal solution with auxiliary coolant channels embedded within the cold plate for additional cooling. This allows for an increase in cooling power without compromising the overall footprint. Experiments were performed on a mockup device simulating a very high power component with an internal heater producing up to 400W. A number of configurations were tested with a different number of coolant channels. The test configurations were chosen based on manufacturing constraints. Test results show a dramatic improvement in cooling performance in the high power range compared to the baseline configuration (solid cold plate). Temperature reductions of ~40°C at 400W power load were observed. However, for low power loads, the addition of the coolant channels was found to interfere with the TEC cooling capabilities resulting in worse performance. Further testing of the channeled configuration without coolant flow showed very similar results to the baseline. Future implementation of flow control is expected to enable optimal performance in the whole power range.