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Metal Injection Moulding technology set to transform the design and production of heat sinks
Feature article: PIM International, Vol.1 No. 4 December 2007, pages 27-30, 3290 words
Acelent Technologies Pte Ltd, 207 Woodlands Ave 9, #06-55, Singapore
Introduction
Rapid developments in microprocessor technology have led to a need for the efficient high-volume production of advanced heat sink devices. As Lye-King Tan of Acelent Technologies Pte Ltd explains, the metal injection moulding process is highly suited to the production of the next generation of these high performance products. Metal injection moulding offers product designers a greater freedom to adapt traditional heat sink designs to offer both increased thermal efficiency and substantial cost savings in high volume production.
The current attention on thermal management systems has become more intense with the increasing speed of modern microprocessors, higher performance workstations and memory chips. Power density in these micro devices has increased significantly over the past years, so the design of cooling systems needs to develop in order to meet the new challenges.
In the early days, a passive heat sink with a cooling fan was sufficient to remove heat efficiently from many electronic devices. Later, heatpipes became the popular design application and today advanced cooling systems such as liquid cooling, thermoelectric cooling and even refrigeration are entering strongly into the market. Regardless of the cooling systems, there is always a basic need for a heat sink or heat spreader to come in contact with the heat source to conduct the heat away.
Historically, manufacturing methods such as die casting, extrusion and machining were familiar to many thermal engineers. It is only in the last few years that metal injection moulding (MIM) has gained a foothold in this thermal community and the benefits have become evident. The metal injection moulding process allows intricate features to be added into the heat sink design to boost thermal performance and its production process is very scalable compared with machining, for example. Several thermal conductive materials such as aluminium, copper, tungsten-copper and molybdenum copper can be processed via metal injection moulding to meet thermal management requirements......
Further sections of this article include:
- The basic metal injection moulding process
- Metal injection moulding of copper
- Metal injection moulded heat sinks
- Conclusion
Figures and Tables:Fig. 1 The four steps of the metal injection moulding process Fig. 2 SEM’s of 11 µm oxide-reduced (top left), 15 µm water-atomised (top right), 8 µm gas-atomised (bottom left), 8 µm jet-milled (bottom right) Cu powders Fig. 3 Effect of copper powder on density and thermal conductivity Fig. 4a Metal injection moulded heat sink with thin fin of 0.5mm Fig. 4b Metal injection moulding offers combinations of different pin geometries within the same heat sink, round pin (top) and elliptical pin (bottom) Fig. 4c Creative heat sink designs are made possible by metal injection moulding Table 1 Theoretical data of thermal conductivity (W/mK) |
__________________________________ Also available from PIM International: Micro-channelled heat exchanger manufactured by Ceramic Injection Moulding and co-firing (PDF Store) Metal and ceramic injection moulding: A guide for designers and end-users (Free feature) ______________________________________ |
