Each advance in electronic components can cause increases in heat generation in a smaller package size. Due to these factors, there is a need for dissipation of the heat generated by these components. For example, there is a current need to dissipate heat from personal computer Central Processing Units (CPUs) in the range of 50 to 150 W.
Forced and natural convection air cooling methods, used in conjunction with heat sinks and heat pipes, currently serve as the predominant method of cooling electronics. The current conventional air cooling systems that use aluminum extruded or die-casting fin heat sinks are not sufficient for cooling the high heat flux of chip-surfaces or for large heat dissipation with low thermal resistance and compact size. Further, these air-cooled heat sinks require a substantial surface area to effectively function. To be able to transfer the increased heat load, the air-cooled heat sinks have become even larger. This requires the use of larger fans to overcome back-pressures caused by the large heat sinks. In other words, current air-cooled heat sinks require substantial space on the one hand, while blocking airflow entry and escape paths on the other. Thus, current cooling methods are unequal to the task of removing heat.
Moreover, the use of progressively larger fans increases the amount of acoustic noise generated by the cooling system and also increases the amount of electric power drawn by the system. For example, conventional solutions include use of multiple heat pipes to carry the heat to large heat sinks via high airflow. This leads to solution with high noise levels, which are undesirable.
Furthermore, a shortcoming of current traditional fan based heat dissipation methods is that heat is transferred in only one direction because a fan is placed to blow air in one direction over the heat sink. This limitation causes non-uniform temperature gradients across the heat sink and correspondingly, across the electronic component.
Due to these factors, and other shortcomings, there is a need for a more efficient and effective cooling system.