Certain thermal or mechanical requirements may force an illogical pass of the liquid circuit, resulting in greater complexity and a higher cost cold plate. For example, applications frequently have predetermined mounting hole locations that the liquid circuit must navigate around and/or components and fluid inlet and outlet locations that are fixed, significantly limiting the options for the liquid circuit. Generally, the more flexible the design is, the easier the cold plate will be to engineer and the more savings you'll realize. By working closely with a printed circuit board designer or electrical engineer, the thermal engineer can provide input on the spacing and positioning of components to ensure they are designed with electrical as well as thermal requirements in mind. This may significantly simplify the cold plate design and reduce cost. For more information on cold plate costs please see our application note "Cold Plate Manufacturing Cost Drivers".
It's important to understand the various design techniques that allow a custom cold plate solution to meet the most challenging thermal and mechanical requirements. With thousands of permutations for a custom cold plate design, skilled engineering is key. Flexibility with the location of inlets and outlets, proper fluid circuit routing, and the use of fin or channels can help to create a thermal solution that provides the best value for the application. As heat loads become more and more concentrated and the space allocated for cooling becomes smaller and smaller, custom cold plates will be used more and more to meet applications' unique liquid cooling needs. Aavid, Thermal Division of Boyd Corporation has decades of experience designing and manufacturing custom cold plates for printed circuit boards and other electronics and ensuring their high thermal performance requirements and cost limits are met or exceeded.
Learn more about our different Liquid Cold Plate solutions in our Liquid Cold Plate Section.