Microfluidic Cooling Systems for Processor Thermal Management

Electronic device and airflow generating package for improved heat dissipation. The device has a component that generates heat, a heat conductive component to transfer the heat, and an airflow generating package on the device edge. The package contains a film structure that oscillates at ultrasonic rates to generate airflow. This airflow flows through the heat conductive component to dissipate the heat. The oscillating film creates controlled vent openings to direct the airflow. This active airflow improves heat dissipation compared to passive convection.

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Component cooling system for high-performance computing devices that provides improved cooling efficiency compared to traditional cooling methods. The system uses multiple heat pipes, spring mechanisms, and thermoelectric coolers to split and remove heat from components. The spring mechanisms rigidly attach heat transfer elements to the cooling manifold, maintaining contact during assembly and use. This ensures consistent thermal conductivity and prevents displacement. The multiple fluid flow paths and thermoelectric coolers facilitate better heat removal from components.

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Detachable chip-level liquid cooling for high power electronics to improve heat dissipation capability and reliability compared to traditional heat sinks. The chip has microchannels etched on its surface. A detachable cover plate with inlet and outlet connects over the channels. This allows ultra-high heat dissipation while enabling separate maintenance and reuse of the chip and cover. The detachable design improves reliability and reduces costs compared to integrated solutions where a blocked channel renders the whole chip unusable.

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A thermal management system for high power computing devices like servers that uses arrays of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) jets to cool the devices more effectively than traditional fans or liquid cooling. The system has a heat sink with fins in contact with the hot components. MEMS jets are mounted on the fins and vibrated at resonance to create high-speed impinging fluid flow. This provides higher cooling capacity in a compact size compared to fans. The MEMS jets can be driven with feedback control to optimize cooling performance.

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A compact and efficient chip cooling system using micro-nano structures inside the cooling channels. The system has a closed loop cooling pipeline with turbulent flow enhancers inside the channels. A unidirectional pump outside the loop circulates the cooling fluid. The turbulent flow enhancers are micro-nano protrusions on the channel walls that disrupt laminar flow, enhance convection, reduce contact angles, and improve heat exchange. The system provides compact, high utilization, large heat dissipation area, and efficient cooling compared to conventional channels.

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A microfluidic cooling device for integrated circuits that enables on-demand thermal management through a customizable template structure and high-throughput additive manufacturing (HTAM) process. The device comprises microfluidic channels defined by a template structure and supplemented by a deposited material, allowing for optimized microchannel dimensions and shapes tailored to specific IC thermal management requirements. The HTAM process enables rapid production of customized microfluidic thermal solutions with precise control over microchannel routing and fluid flow characteristics.

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A multilayer cooling structure for electronic assemblies, comprising a heat absorption plane with cooling troughs, a heat dissipation plane, a supply plane, and connecting channels. The structure enables uniform cooling over large areas through a novel arrangement of heat transfer surfaces and channels, fabricated using additive manufacturing techniques.

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Electronic packages with inductors that utilize fluidic channels for cooling, where the inductor's magnetic core and conductive windings are integrated with a fluid path that passes through the core and windings to dissipate heat generated by the inductor's operation.

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A thermal management system for electronic devices that uses a movable fluid movement structure to enhance heat transfer between the device and a working fluid. The structure is positioned on a surface of a thermal management device and moved relative to the device and/or other structures to direct fluid flow and increase thermal transfer rates. The system can be integrated into immersion cooling systems with condensers for efficient heat removal.

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A direct silicon microfluidic cooling system for electronic components, comprising a cooling block with micro-pin fins, a manifold with inlet and outlet ports, a thermal interface material layer, and an electronic component. The cooling block matches the surface area of the electronic component, with micro-pin fins on one side and the thermal interface material layer on the other. The manifold supports fluid flow through the micro-pin fins to remove heat from the electronic component.

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A liquid cooling module for electronic devices, particularly foldable mobile phones and wearables, that integrates a pump and cooling module into a single, flexible unit. The pump features a piezoelectric component that drives fluid flow through a sealed cavity, eliminating the need for separate inlet and outlet valves. The cooling module includes a flexible membrane that seals the pump to the device's casing, eliminating the need for additional sealing interfaces. The design enables reliable, high-performance cooling in compact, flexible devices.

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Cooling specific circuits in a photonic integrated circuit to low temperatures like cryogenic levels, instead of globally cooling the entire circuit, to improve performance of superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) without cooling the entire circuit. Micro-channels are etched adjacent to the SNSPDs to locally conduct cryogenic fluids like liquid helium directly above the SNSPDs for targeted cooling. This reduces the thermal resistance and improves heat flow compared to global cooling, allowing lower power consumption for SNSPD cryogenic operation.

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A liquid-cooled heat sink for electronic components that combines microchannel and jet impingement cooling. The heat sink features a fractal inlet manifold that distributes coolant uniformly to multiple microjets, which impinge on a heat exchange plate. The design enables efficient cooling of high-power electronic components while minimizing pressure drop and thermal resistance. The heat sink is fabricated using additive manufacturing techniques, such as stereolithography, to create complex geometries with high accuracy.

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A microfluidic thermal management system for electronic components that uses selectively actuated valves and/or pumping membranes to flow cool working fluid across hot spots and effectively manage heat generated by the components. The system includes a microfluidic volume with thermal elements, inlet and outlet ports, and valves that can be controlled to direct working fluid flow based on thermal management demands of the component. The system can be electrically connected to a controller or power source that measures thermal demands and determines optimal working fluid flow rates and paths to maintain component temperature within a safe operating range.

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Driven by the demands of the intelligent industry, the thermal management of high power chips is causing huge concern. In the last several decades, microfluidic cooling has demonstrated great potential in device cooling applications. This paper presents a monolithically integrated manifold microchannel cold plate that can become a general embedded cooling method for most chips. The test samples are fabricated by the MEMS process and test. The experimental result shows that the cold plate can remove more than 500W/cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> heat with a thermal resistance below 0.25 Kcm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> /W and the global average convective heat transfer coefficient was approximately 43300 W/m <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> K. This approach is important for solving thermal management challenges in electronic devices.

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Results of a review of the cooling needs for high performance computing (HPC) processors using advanced packaging indicates benefits of implementing direct cooling through silicon microchannels. Progress in fabrication of silicon microchannels, both in microcooler/cold plate and in direct cooling of the die is assessed. Challenges in transferring silicon microchannels into HPC packaging are summarized, and steps towards commercialization are presented.

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A cooling system for electronic components that employs multiple parallel heat transfer paths between a primary heat sink and a secondary heat sink, with each path providing a separate conduction path for heat removal. The system includes a manifold that distributes a heat transfer fluid between the primary and secondary heat sinks, allowing for efficient heat transfer and improved cooling performance.

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A fluid cooling system for integrated circuits that employs multiple flow paths through multiple heat transfer elements to achieve higher heat dissipation efficiency. The system includes a manifold that splits a single fluid flow into multiple paths, each of which can be controlled independently to target specific heat dissipation needs. The manifold then merges the paths after heat transfer, enabling optimized cooling of high-power components.

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A component cooler for computing devices that utilizes multiple heat pipes to split a heat load generated by a component, such as a processor, by providing multiple conduction paths between multiple heat transfer surfaces to facilitate heat removal from the component. The cooler includes multiple fluid flow paths across multiple surfaces to facilitate heat removal from the component, and can utilize one or more thermoelectric coolers (TECs) in contact with one or more heat transfer surfaces to provide sub-ambient cooling to the heat transfer surfaces to facilitate heat removal from the component.

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A component cooler for computing devices that enables adaptive cooling by providing an identity of the cooler to the processor and configuring operating parameters based on the cooler's capabilities. The cooler employs multiple heat pipes, fluid flow paths, and thermoelectric coolers to manage heat removal, and communicates its characteristics to the processor to optimize performance.

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