An active cold plate for power electronics

A liquid cooled heat sink/cold plate for electronic components with high heat flux and high heat dissipation requirements has been proposed. The convective resistance of the heat sink is minimized by combining jet impingement cooling together with high velocity flows in narrow gaps. An integrated pumping capability ensures that the caloric resistance is low and permits direct contact cooling in order to eliminate contact and conduction resistances. A prototype heat sink has been fabricated and tested in order to evaluate its performance. Experimental results show that the normalized resistance of the heat sink, based on the heated area, can be more than 50% lower than those of conventional liquid cooled heat sinks. The results also suggest that further improvements in performance are feasible.