The application of thermoelectric cooler in edge computing servers

With the growing demand for edge computing power, edge servers are facing a huge challenge in heat dissipation issues, which seriously restricts their development towards higher computing power. Thermoelectric cooler (TEC) can transfer more heat for the chip through active cooling and even decrease the chip's junction temperature [T
j
) below the ambient temperature, which provides a potential possibility for the cooling of chips with higher power. In this work, the effect of three cooling methods, namely natural convection cooling (NCC), air forced cooling (AFC), and cold plate cooling (CPC), on the cooling performance of TEC was investigated. The average T
j
of two main chips and the coefficient of performance (COP) value of TEC were used as the key parameters to evaluate the cooling performance of TEC. It can be concluded that the CPC configuration has better cooling performance than NCC and AFC configurations, which can provide a possibility of reducing the average T
j
below the ambient temperature. The TEC operating current range that can meet the chip's normal operation increases with the enhancement of the cooling capacity at the TEC hot side, which can provide more available TEC operating current parameters for users to meet the chip's requirements for different operating temperatures. When the chip's T
j
decreases to its minimum value, the COP value of TEC is lower than its maximum value under the same configuration. As the cooling capacity at the TEC hot side increases, the TEC can transfer more power dissipation by operating larger current. In order to optimize the cooling performance of TEC, the heatsink at the TEC hot side should be designed to maintain the chip's T
j
at least 10 °C lower than its upper temperature limit when the COP value of TEC is 1.5.