Novel power electronics three-dimensional heat exchanger

Electric-drive systems, which include electric machines and power electronics, are a key enabling technology to meet increasing automotive fuel economy standards, improve energy security, address environmental concerns, and support economic development. Enabling cost-effective electric-drive systems requires reductions in inverter power semiconductor area, which increases challenges associated with heat removal. In this paper, we demonstrate an integrated approach to the design of thermal management systems for power semiconductors that matches the passive thermal resistance of the packaging with the active convective cooling performance of the heat exchanger. The heat exchanger concept builds on existing semiconductor thermal management improvements described in literature and patents, which include improved bonded interface materials, direct cooling of the semiconductor packages, and double-sided cooling. The key difference in the described concept is the achievement of high heat transfer performance with less aggressive cooling techniques by optimizing the passive and active heat transfer paths. An extruded aluminum design was selected because of its lower tooling cost, higher performance, and scalability in comparison to cast aluminum. Results demonstrated a 102% heat flux improvement and a package heat density improvement over 30%, which achieved the thermal performance targets.