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Heat Sinks and Thermal Solutions for Server Computer Industry Applications

The server industry offers a large variety of products ranging from 1U servers (1U server heat sinks) and blade servers, to mainframes all posing challenging and interesting thermal problems. The processors used typically dissipate a large amount of power yet have limited space for the heat sink. Other heat sources within the system often cause additional problems and require cooling as well. The servers are often required to work at elevated ambient temperatures and utilize system airflow for component and heat sick cooling. Because of this, often times, heat sinks must be custom designed for the application.

Heat Sinks and Thermal Solutions for Server Computers

Server heat sinks range from large extruded heat sinks or bonded fin heat sinks, to heat pipe embedded heat sinks measuring 10mm tall. Heat pipes provide an excellent method of improving the performance of a heat sink, either by improving the heat spreading across the base, or by carrying the heat to a more open area for improved heat dissipation. Additionally, in case of tall heat sink fins, heat pipes can be used to increase heat sink fin efficiency providing better performing thermal solution.

1U server heat sinks can be particularly difficult to design because they often need to cool high end CPUs, while limiting the heat sink height to less than 1 inch. In most server applications heat sinks use system airflow for cooling, while in rare occasions heat sinks have fans mounted directly to them. Depending on the application, some heat sinks must continue to work after partial fan failures.

Blade servers cause even more challenging thermal problems. Most blade servers utilize high end, high power dissipating processors in a very compact chassis with limited space for a heat sink. These servers are often rack mounted often causing additional thermal problems.

Enertron has a long history of supporting server industry. For more information regarding Enertron's support of Server Computer market, please contact one or our applications engineers.