The growth rate of the liquid cooling market in the next 10 years is as high as 16%
Industries such as high-performance computing and artificial intelligence large model training rely on high-performance processors. Due to the large amount of computing tasks that these processors need to handle, they generate enormous amounts of heat. Therefore, data centers that accommodate a large number of processors and network devices generate a significant amount of heat. Efficient cooling solutions are crucial for preventing processor overheating and maintaining optimal performance.
Compared with traditional air cooling methods, liquid cooling has a higher heat dissipation efficiency. Liquids have higher thermal capacity and thermal conductivity, which can more effectively remove heat from electronic devices. As modern electronic devices become increasingly powerful and generate more heat, the development of liquid cooling systems has received great attention. liquid cooling is a widely used and promising cooling solution. In the next 10 years, the compound annual growth rate of data center liquid cooling will reach 16%, while other liquid cooling alternatives will also grow strongly.
The unique differentiation factor of the cold plate lies in its internal microstructure. At present, the use of microchannels for cold plate solutions is the focus of data center cooling applications and research. Microchannel cold plates can provide significant heat transfer capability, however, microchannel blockage caused by the deposition of small foreign objects; When the heat flux is too high, the fluid in the microchannel changes from single-phase to unexpected two-phase, and the resulting bubbles cannot be quickly removed, which may cause local drying of the channel. These problems will lead to a decrease in the heat transfer performance of the microchannel cold plate. The traditional parallel microchannel liquid cooled plate has low heat flux density and uneven flow distribution, facing the challenge of high-performance server chip heat dissipation.
Therefore, researchers use various discontinuous structures and special channel patterns to disrupt smooth flow, promote fluid turbulence, and increase heat transfer area to strengthen cold plate heat transfer. However, this often leads to greater pressure drop, requiring careful cold plate microstructure design and fluid dynamics simulation. The innovation of cold plate microstructure is crucial. Currently, enhancing heat transfer through flow disturbances and directly integrating with processor packaging to reduce interface thermal resistance.
This innovative liquid cooling technology design is called microchannel integrated heat sink (MC-IHS). At the 20th iTherm Conference in 2021, Intel presented the MC-IHS prototype for the first time in a conference paper. The thermal test results show that the cooling capacity of MC-IHS technology is about 30% higher than that of the standard cold plate. When the cooling load is greater than 1000 W, Rf-in can reach about 0.05 ° C/W.
Liquid cooling is a popular thermal solution that replaces traditional air cooling to meet the cooling needs of high heat flux processors and high-density servers. However, with the growth of cpu power and the improvement of device integration, the shortcomings of traditional cold plates are gradually being amplified. Therefore, innovative designs are needed to meet the cooling needs of future 500W or 1000W processors.
