Comparison of Microfluidic and Traditional Techniques for Cooling High Heat Flux Microelectronic Systems

The growing demand for microelectronic systems to be smaller and faster has increased the energy released by these devices in the form of heat. Microelectronic systems such as laptop computers are not exempted from these demands. The primary traditional technologies currently used to remove heat generated in these devices are fins and fans. In this study, traditional methods were compared to more novel methods like microchannel cooling using water and nanofluids. For this study, the difference between the surface temperature of a simulated microelectronic system and the ambient temperature was compared for several cooling scenarios. Lower DT values indicate more effective cooling. The ΔT values for the bare bar, fan, fins, and microchannels were found to be 27°C, 24°C, 21°C, and 17°C respectively.  These results suggest that microchannel cooling is a promising method for managing heat in high heat flux microelectronic systems.