Material Selection for Microchannel Heatsink: Conjugate Heat Transfer Simulation

Heat dissipation during the operation of electronic devices causes rise in temperature, which demands an effective thermal management for their performance, life and reliability. Single phase liquid cooling in microchannels is an effective and proven technology for electronics cooling. However, due to the ongoing trends of miniaturization and developments in the microelectronics technology, the future needs of heat flux dissipation rate are expected to rise to 1 kW/cm². Air cooled systems are unable to meet this demand. Hence, liquid cooled heatsinks are preferred. This paper presents conjugate heat transfer simulation of single phase flow in microchannels with application to electronic cooling. The numerical model is simulated for different materials: copper, aluminium and silicon as solid and water as liquid coolant. The performances of microchannel heatsink are analysed for mass flow rate range of 20-40 ml/min. The investigation has been carried out on same size of electronic chip and heat flux in order to have comparative study of different materials. This paper is divided into two sections: fabrication techniques and numerical simulation for different materials. In the first part, a brief discussion of fabrication techniques of microchannel heatsink have been presented. The second section presents conjugate heat transfer simulation and parametric investigation for different material microchannel heatsink. The presented study and findings are useful for selection of materials for microchannel heatsink. (paper)