A critical review of traditional and emerging techniques and fluids for electronics cooling

doi:10.1016/j.rser.2017.04.112

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

Volume 78, October 2017, Pages 821-833

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.04.112 Get rights and content

Abstract

Continued miniaturization and demand for high-end performance of electronic devices and appliances have led to dramatic increase in their heat flux generation. Consequently, conventional coolants and cooling approaches are increasingly falling short in meeting the ever-increasing cooling needs and challenges of those high heat generating electronic devices. This study provides a critical review of traditional and emerging cooling methods as well as coolants for electronics. In addition to summarizing traditional coolants, heat transfer properties and performances of potential new coolants such as nanofluids are also reviewed and analyzed. With superior thermal properties and numerous benefits nanofluids show great promises in fulfilling the cooling demands of high heat generating electronic devices. It is believed that applications of such novel coolants in emerging techniques like micro-channels and micro-heat pipes can revolutionize cooling technologies for electronics in the future.

Section snippets

Background

Recent advances in semiconductor and other mini-and micro-scale electronic technologies have resulted in very high increase in power density particularly for high performance chips. Despite impressive progress been made during the past decades, there are still serious technical challenges in thermal management of electronics devices or microprocessors. Two main cooling challenges are adequate removal of increased heat flux and highly non-uniform power dissipation. According to the 2004

Traditional cooling techniques

Although impressive progress has been made on electronic cooling systems in recent years, the high heat flux removal from the high-tech electronic devices remains very challenging and inadequate. Here available conventional cooling methods, their classifications based on heat transfer mechanisms and coolants used, as well as their cooling effectiveness are summarized.

Based on heat transfer effectiveness cooling modes can be classified into four general categories which are [27]:

1.
Radiation and

Conventional and emerging coolants

There are numerous traditional aqueous and non-aqueous coolants, which are used in various electronics cooling systems. Properties and selection criteria of these coolants are discussed in this section. As a new and emerging type of coolants, nanofluids showed great potential as superior coolants for electronic devices compared to traditional coolants. Heat transfer properties including thermal conductivity, convective and boiling heat transfer of nanofluids have also been briefly reviewed and

Application of new fluids (nanofluids) in electronics cooling

Because of very compact, lightweight and superior cooling performance, extensive research works have been performed on the application of microchannel-based cooling systems (e.g., heat sinks) in electronics cooling [38], [39], [61], [108], [142]. Since the convective heat transfer is inversely proportional to the hydraulic diameter of the channel, very high heat transfer performance can be achieved by using microchannel in any flow regime. However, the main limitation of microchannel cooling

Concluding remarks

Despite good progress been made during the past decades electronic and semiconductor industries are still facing some serious technical challenges to deal with the thermal management of their high performance electronics products and devices. This is mostly related to conventional cooling approaches and coolants, which are increasingly falling short in meeting the ever-increasing cooling demand of high heat generating electronic devices and microprocessors. However, most of the electronics

Acknowledgement

This work was partially supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal through grants SFRH/BPD/102518/2014 and UID/QUI/ 0100/2013.

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A critical review of traditional and emerging techniques and fluids for electronics cooling

Abstract

Section snippets

Background

Traditional cooling techniques

Conventional and emerging coolants

Application of new fluids (nanofluids) in electronics cooling

Concluding remarks

Acknowledgement

Appl Therm Eng

Renew Sustain Energy Rev

Renew Sustain Energy Rev

Int J Therm Sci

Int J Refrig

Renew Sustain Energy Rev

Energy Proc

Appl Therm Eng

Appl Therm Eng

Appl Therm Eng

Appl Therm Eng

Energy Convers Manag

Appl Therm Eng

Int J Refrig

Appl Energy

Int J Heat Mass Transf

Renew Sustain Energy Rev

Renew Sustain Energy Rev

Int J Therm Sci

Int J Therm Sci

Curr Appl Phys

Int Commun Heat Mass Transf

State of the art of high heat flux cooling technologies

Heat Transf Eng

Heat transfer: a practical approach

Cramming more components onto integrated circuits

Proc IEEE

Thermal modeling, analysis, and management in VLSI circuits: principles and methods

Proc IEEE

Electromigration-a brief survey and some recent results

IEEE Trans Electron Devices

Cooling options and challenges of high power semiconductor modules

Electron Cool

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Electron Cool

Review and comparison of nanofluid thermal conductivity and heat transfer enhancements

Heat Transf Eng

Boiling heat transfer and droplet spreading of nanofluids

Recent Pat Nanotechnol

Nanofluids: synthesis, properties and applications

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Adv Mech Eng

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Thermal properties of ionic liquids and ionanofluids of imidazolium and pyrrolidinium liquids

J Chem Eng Data

Thermal conductivity of ionanofluids of [C4mim][NTf2] and [C2mim][EtSO4] with carbon nanotubes. Experiment and theory

J Chem Eng Data

Synthesis, properties and physical applications of ionanofluids

Ionanofluids–new heat transfer fluids for green process development

Cooling of electronic equipment

Thermal managements in electronic cooling

Advances in high-performance cooling for electronics

Electron Cool

Thermal management of electronics: a review of literature

Therm Sci

Design and performance evaluation of a compact thermosyphon

IEEE Trans Compon Packag Technol

Thermal conductivity of ionanofluids of [C₄mim][NTf₂] and [C₂mim][EtSO₄] with carbon nanotubes. Experiment and theory