ANALYSIS OF MICROCHANNELS FOR INTEGRATED COOLING

Recent advances in the precision machining of small channels have made possible the use of such micro-channels in ultra compact, very efficient heat exchangers, which capitalize on the channels' large surface area to volume ratio to transport high heat fluxes with small thermal resistances. For instance, such micro-channels can be fabricated right into the back of electronic chips to effectuate the cooling of these chips. In this paper, we analyze such heat exchangers by solving numerically a conjugate heat transfer problem consisting of the simultaneous determination of the temperature fields in both the solid substrate and the fluid. Additionally, we present a design algorithm for the selection of the heat exchanger's dimensions.