Vapor Chambers in Blade Server CPU Cooling Solutions

Current blade processors need air cooling solutions that dissipate 100–300 watts with heat sinks that are less than 30 mm high. In order to cool these processors, the heat sink base has to grow in length and width to compensate for the lack of available height. As these dimensions grow, decreasing the base spreading of the heat sink becomes an important factor is decreasing the overall resistance of the heat sink. A vapor chamber used as a substitute to common copper or aluminum as the base of the heat sink can increase performance by 20–25%. A vapor chamber is a two phase heat transport system that significantly reduces the spreading resistance in applications where there is a high heat flux processor coupled with a large heat sink. In this paper, a CFD model will be constructed to predict the performance gains realized by using a vapor chamber base in lieu of a copper or aluminum base. These predictions will then be experimentally tested to confirm the modeling parameters and the actual measured thermal performance of the heat sink. By utilizing vapor chambers in heat sink design, thermal engineers will gain valuable heat sink performance within the constraints imposed by the blade system architecture.