Characterization Of Liquid Cooled Cold Plates For A Multi Chip Module (Mcm) And Their Impact On Data Center Chiller Operation

Miniaturization of microelectronic components comes at a price of high heat flux density. By adopting liquid cooling, the rising demand of high heat flux devices can be met while the reliability of the microelectronic devices can also be improved to a greater extent. Liquid cooled cold plates are largely replacing air based heat sinks for electronics in data center applications, thanks to its large heat carrying capacity. A bench level study was carried out to characterize the thermohydraulic performance of microchannel cold plates which uses warm De-Ionized (DI) water for cooling Multi Chip Modules (MCM). A laboratory built mock package housing mock chips and a heat spreader was employed while assessing the thermal performance of three different cold plate designs at varying coolant flow rate and temperature. The case temperature measured at the heat spreader for varying flow rates and input power were essential in identifying the convective resistance corresponding to the cold plates. The flow performance was evaluated by the measuring the pressure drop across cold plate module at varying flow rates. Cold plate with the enhanced microchannel design yielded better results compared to a traditional parallel microchannel design. The experimental results were validated using a numerical model which is further optimized for improved geometric designs. Finally, an estimation of chiller operating cost was obtained for a 100% air cooled facility and compared their performance to that of a 60% warm water cooled facility.