Stacked Microchannel Heat Sinks for Liquid Cooling of Microelectronic Components

A novel heat sink based on a multi-layer stack of liquid cooled microchannels is investigated. For a given pumping power and heat removal capability for the heat sink, the flow rate across a stack of microchannels is lower compared to a single layer of microchannels. Numerical simulations using a computationally efficient multigrid method [1] were carried out to investigate the detailed conjugate transport within the heat sink. The effects of the microchannel aspect ratio and total number of layers on thermal performance were studied for water as coolant. A heat sink of base area 10 mm by 10 mm with a height in the range 1.8 to 4.5 mm (2–5 layers) was considered with water flow rate in the range 0.83×10−6 m3/s (50 ml/min) to 6.67×10−6 m3/s (400 ml/min). The results of the computational simulations were also compared with a simplified thermal resistance network analysis.