Development Of A Laboratory Curriculum Devoted To The Thermal Management Of Electronics

Effective cooling of electronics has emerged as a challenging and constraining problem of the new 21 st century. The economic market demands ever faster computer clock speeds while at the same time smaller physical enclosures. Computers, cell phones, and even automotive electronic systems are becoming smaller and smaller. Since computer chip heat fluxes (the rate of heat transfer per unit area) increase with increasing clock speeds and decreasing chip sizes, these demands have led to skyrocketing heat flux removal demands. At the same time, current technology allows a maximum junction (chip surface) temperature typically of no more than 125° C 1 – a value that continues to decrease. Above this maximum temperature, the life of the chip decreases in length significantly. The challenges posed by ever-increasing chip heat fluxes, smaller enclosures, and stricter performance and reliability standards have made thermal management of electronics a key technology in the continued development of 21 st century microelectronic systems 2 . Indeed, thermal management of systems that will most likely be developed in the next several years cannot be done with the current state of technology 3 .