Innovative Cold Plate
Background
The rapid growing field of AI and high-performance computing has led to small-form factor chips (CPUs/TPUs) with exceedingly high heat fluxes. Traditional air cooling struggles to dissipate these thermal loads efficiently. The research from our team at UC Irvine proposes an innovative liquid-vapor phase change cooling plate to address the need for high-performance cold plates that integrate seamlessly with new generation server hardware.
Goal and Objectives
The team seeks to accomplish the following:
Q1 2025 (first half of winter quarter): Market research on industry chip cooling tech and academic literature on heat transfer fundamentals
Q2 2025 (second half of winter quarter): Finalize a design matrix via trade studies, providing complete design proposals for internal/external components, testing/data collection, and ANSYS fluid simulations
Q3 2025 (first half spring quarter): Validate manufacturing process and achieve target metrics in prototype testing
Q4 2025 (second half spring quarter): Revise design, scale for certain server motherboards and optimize for cost and performance
Design considerations
Latent Heat Absorption: Phase change transports 100-1000x more heat per unit mass than the sensible heating in single-phase
Vapor Bubble Dynamics: If nucleation can be attained, smaller bubbles detach faster, and would enhance heat transfer (Risks: avoid critical heat flux and dry out with unique surface design)
Engineered Microstructures: Increase surface area, reduce pressure drop, and improve passive pumping through capillary action. Our structures consider those factors and seek to decouple liquid inflow and vapor escape.
Jet Impingement: micro-jets to introduce fluid into the cooling plate would target hotspots in TPUs and provide a uniform temperature across the chip.
Dielectric Coolants and Material Coatings: Novec 7100 (3M) and certain materials enhance thermal conductivity and other measurable performance elements.
Performance Targets
Max Heat Flux: 600 W/cm^2
Max Temperature: < 70 deg Celsius
Temperature Variation: < 3 deg Celsius
Pressure Drop: < 80 kPa
Thermal Resistance: < 0.03 Celsius/W
Cost per unit: <$100
Documentation
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rOgAc_xijDI5-TOCv5kV7sPx3KINNvwk?usp=sharing
External Website
https://coldplayt.godaddysites.com/
Team Contacts
Team Lead: Manav Anand (manand2@uci.edu)
Jackson Luong (jacksol4@uci.edu)
Sage Singh (sahajs@uci.edu)
Saheed Oladunjoye (soladunj@uci.edu)
Chukwuka Chidi (cchidi@uci.edu)
Sponsor/Advisor
Professor Yoonjin Won
