Lightweight, Low-Cost, High-Performance Heat Sink for High-Power Electronics

"A key design limitation of many current electronic systems is heat rejection. As microchips become ever more densely packed with greater quantities of components, the amount of heat generated per unit area likewise increases rapidly. As the junctiontemperatures within an electronic component increase, the reliability and useful lifetime of the device decrease rapidly, even silicon carbide (SiC) components. In this project, Ultramet proposes to model and fabricate a lightweight, low-cost,high-performance heat sink for actively cooled high-power SiC-based electronics. This new heat sink will utilize open-cell silicon carbide foam as its key component, which will act as a high thermal conductivity, high surface area cooling fin. Becausesilicon carbide has a higher thermal conductivity per unit weight than copper, and because the foam will have a useful surface area an order of magnitude greater than typical aluminum fin devices, the proposed device will greatly outperform the currentdevices and simultaneously provide a substantial weight savings. The perfect thermal expansion match between the advanced SiC-based electronic components and the heat sink will greatly simplify design issues. Ultramet will not only fabricate and test aSiC foam cold plate, but also model its performance at a fundamental engineering level. Commercial applications for advanced heat sinks for electronic components include military radar, military, civil,