The Therm 4.1 software package takes care of the complex calculation of climate control requirements, and now includes the new generation of Rittal TopTherm cooling units.
The Therm 4.1 software package takes care of the complex calculation of climate control requirements, and now includes the new generation of Rittal TopTherm cooling units. The user-friendly software calculates the most appropriate cooling temperature based on the information provided regarding ambient temperature, enclosure temperature and heat parameters. It also provides charts, equipment information, drawings as well as flow diagrams.

Therm 4.1 software also allows calculation when several enclosures are bayed together and is able to calculate temperatures for the complete assembly or individual enclosures.

The windows based program allows easy access and retrieval of current and saved information, as well as the ability to modify and change set system parameters.

Rittal offers this software free of charge to users of its cooling units.

A novel unreinforced, thermally conductive, pressure sensitive adhesive tape delivers very high bond strength to low-energy surfaces.
A novel unreinforced, thermally conductive, pressure sensitive adhesive tape delivers very high bond strength to low-energy surfaces and maintains this strength during long-term exposure to heat and high humidity. Bond-Ply 400 is designed to quickly and easily secure heatsinks and heat spreaders to BGA graphics processors, computer processors, power convertors, motor control PCBs, and other devices and parts with poor surface flatness. On such low energy surfaces, the unsupported nature of the Bond-Ply 400 interface provides superior wet-out characteristics and thermal performance than would be possible using supported materials.

Supplied in sheet form, roll form, or as die-cut parts, Bond-Ply 400 is available with easy-release protective topside tabs that facilitate simple and rapid manual assembly.

Thermal performance is rated at 5.4C/W, and standard Bond-Ply 400 thicknesses range from 0.076 to 0.25mm.

Hi-Flow 225UF has been developed in response to the high power digital interface market’s need for a high-performance, reworkable phase change material.
Developed in response to the high power digital interface market’s need for a high-performance, reworkable phase change material, Hi-Flow 225UF interface material combines superior thermal performance with ease of handling. Hi-Flow 225UF uses a special “non-tack” formula of Bergquist’s field-proven Hi-Flow 225U compound to eliminate adhesive bleed-out while providing low thermal resistance. The phase change compound is bonded to a conformable aluminium foil to provide a compliant, easy-release characteristic that simplifies rework at the heatsink level by leaving the surface clean and residue-free.

Typical applications for Hi-Flow 225UF include heatsink/CPU interfaces in games consoles, set top boxes, hubs, workstations and high-end computers, as well as special applications requiring rework or repair at the factory or subcontracting level.

Hi-Flow 225UF is offered in a standard 4mm thickness (1mm foil coated with 3mm phase change compound) and can be supplied in kiss-cut and sheet form as well as square and rectangular “digital standard part” formats.

Designers with challenging heat problems can look to a new silicone-gel-based thermal management solution.
Designers with challenging heat problems can look to a new silicone-gel-based thermal management solution. With outstanding thermal conductivity of 6.5W/m.K and high thermal radiation, this new sheet is ideal for conducting heat away from high power semiconductors. Very flexible with a natural surface tackiness, air gaps are effectively removed.

Thermal resistance is minimised and firm attachment to the application is ensured.

Good flexibility means that just one sheet can be used cover various ICs.

When combined with a heatsink or metal subject this silicone-based material provides very efficient heat radiation.

The silicone content also provides good electrical insulation.

UL94V0 listed at 0.5mm, temperature dependency is also low with no change in hardness from -40 up to +200C.

Sheet thickness start from just 0.5mm.

Where gaps are too narrow or awkward for a sheet solution, a soft gel paste version is also available for syringe dispensing.

Gel-Mec has a wide range of soft thermal-management materials.

Rittal reckons its innovative, ready-to-install PCS power cooling system is the ideal solution for liquid cooling in standard rack systems.
Rittal reckons its innovative, ready-to-install PCS power cooling system is the ideal solution for liquid cooling in standard rack systems. The PCS dissipates the heat directly at its point of origination at the processor, and uses a water heat exchanger, offers greater efficiency and operating reliability with no interfering noise from fans. Distribution pipes conduct the cooling water between an external central recooling unit and the heatsink on the equipment in a closed circuit setup, which is reliably supervised by Rittal’s Computer Multi Control (CMC).

The PCS is available in two enclosures heights (1200mm/24U and 2000mm/42U), and contains a mini recooling system, components for the water feed, the water distribution using a cooling circuit, venting, partition couplings and distributor hose.

Rittal is also able to supply the cooling circuits for the respective CPUs, which consist of the heatsink with retaining bracket, partitioning coupling and connector for the computer housing, as well as coupling and connector grommets for the connection hose for the cooling distributor.

The latest Pfannenberg PC-based thermal calculation software is now available free of charge on CD.
The latest Pfannenberg PC-based thermal calculation software is now available free of charge on CD. The powerful tool enables engineers to calculate the cooling and heating requirements for an electrical or electronic enclosure. The software automatically offers the best solution using Pfannenberg’s range of filter fans, heat exchangers and air conditioners; if heaters are required to prevent the internal temperature falling below the dew point during periods of low temperature, the program will also select the appropriate cabinet heater.

The CD also contains the latest version of the company’s thermal management products catalogue in PDF format, giving full technical information and dimensioned drawings of the products recommended by the thermal management software.

The software is easy to use.

The user the enters maximum and minimum ambient and internal temperatures, and the maximum expected relative humidity.

Users then either choose the enclosure from a supplied database, or enter their own values for size and dissipation.

The effects of changing the enclosure material from steel to stainless steel, aluminium or plastic can be easily seen, as can the effects of wall mounting or baying the enclosures into suites.

The thermal load to be dissipated can either be calculated automatically from predefined settings for circuit breakers, fuses, lamps, power supplies and other common components, it can be entered as an overall figure or the permissible load with or without assisted cooling can be calculated in reverse by defining the acceptable temperature excursions.

Heathru is a novel low-cost diamond-copper composite material with immediate thermal management applications for semiconductor devices with high power densities.
Researchers at Advanced Diamond Solutions have successfully created a low-cost diamond-copper composite material called Heathru, with immediate thermal management applications for semiconductor devices with high power densities. With thermal conductivities demonstrated over twice that of copper, the material will have dramatic impacts in the microprocessor, memory/graphics, optoelectronics and power electronics industries, where power dissipation concerns are paramount. Heat has become the most critical issue in computer and semiconductor design in recent years.

The semiconductor industry has consistently followed Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors within semiconductor chips doubles every 18 months since the beginning days of modern semiconductor manufacturing.

As the same time, the size of transistors is getting smaller, resulting in an increase in the number of transistors packed into a given area.

This, combined with the inexorable increase in the clock speed of running such devices, results in skyrocketing power densities in modern-day devices such as microprocessors and other high-performance chips.

As Intel CTO Patrick Gelsinger prognosticated, the semiconductor industry is “heading for a meltdown”, with the trend of power densities of modern microprocessors literally escalating toward levels found within a nuclear reactor over the next few years.

The main problem boils down to basic materials science.

A material’s thermal conductivity is the core property that determines its ability to efficiently conduct heat away from a power source.

Most modern high-end semiconductor devices have made the move to copper as the material of choice to transfer heat away as it has one of the highest thermal conductivities any metal (silver is the only metal with a slightly higher conductivity, but is cost-prohibitive for most applications).

Unfortunately, copper has already started to become a bottleneck in removing heat from semiconductor devices.

Diamond, on the other hand, has always been considered a miracle material, being both the hardest known material as well as having the highest thermal conductivity, estimated to be around six times that of copper.

However, even with such superlative heat transfer characteristics, diamond has historically been limited in commercial scope because of the associated cost in producing the material.

In fact, only in speciality markets such as heat spreaders for laser diodes has diamond established itself as a viable solution.

Advanced Diamond Solutions has perfected a proprietary process for producing a high-quality diamond-copper composite material that retains a lot of the thermal properties of diamond, but at an order of magnitude cost reduction over conventional diamond manufacturing processes such as chemical vapour deposition (CVD).

By using conventional high-temperature high-pressure diamond presses, Advanced Diamond is able to create a low-cost sintered diamond composite, with the ability to tailor the exact diamond and filler content to dovetail with the thermal specifications of the device it is to be attached to.

In addition, Advanced Diamond can create very large geometries not physically possible with CVD - currently up to over 3mm in thickness, 50mm diameter wafers, with 90mm diameter wafers available in the near future.

According to Advanced Diamond founder Dr James Sung, a world-renowned diamond synthesis expert with over 30 years of experience: “Our diamond composite is commercially available today, and will be the choice thermal transfer material for next-generation chips.

We already have a volume manufacturable product that is around twice the thermal conductivity of copper, with additional samples in the lab that are even more promising.

This material will have a huge impact in the semiconductor industry once people realise that our material isn’t one of the myriad materials touted to be the next best thing that didn’t pan out for one reason or another.

In fact, a number of large defence and IC companies, such as Northup-Grumman, are already field-testing our material as we speak”.

In addition to bulk thermal conductivity, engineers in semiconductor packaging are also extremely concerned about the thermal expansion rate of a material.

If the thermal expansion rates of a thermal transfer material is not properly matched to the device’s semiconductor substrate, microcracking will occur at the interface between the two materials as the device is turned on and off, resulting in reliability problems and reducing the lifetime of the device.

As copper and other metals exhibit thermal expansion rates that are an order of magnitude greater than those of silicon and gallium arsenide, it is problematic to attach these materials to semiconductor chips.

In fact, many packaging solutions sacrifice on thermal conductivity, choosing less efficient heat conductors such as ceramics in order to address this issue.

On the other hand, as Advanced Diamond’s Heathru products are made primarily of diamond, their thermal expansion rate is very semiconductor-compatible.

In addition, Advanced Diamond can tightly control the exact thermal expansion rate of its material by varying the diamond content through the patent-pending process, making it particularly easy to engineer a thermal solution to match a particular semiconductor device.

In fact, there are a host of other benefits useful to the semiconductor industry that comes for free when using the diamond composite.

For example, diamond material has an extremely low heat capacity and cannot tolerate a temperature gradient.

Thus, it is very efficient at reducing transient hotspots on the surface of a chip - another major problem that results in engineering and reliability problems that chip makers must design around.

Also, being composed of the hardest material known, Heathru is very durable and inert, even under great pressure and temperature.

Moreover, as the diamond composite is already infused with a copper filler, it is extremely easy to metallise the surface of the material, allowing for direct brazing attachment to heatsinks, heatpipes and cold plates which reduce the thermal resistance at the attachment interfaces.

CoolFin heatsinks allow designers to reduce weight and save space while maximising thermal efficiency.
CoolFin heatsinks from Molex allow designers to reduce weight and save space while maximising thermal efficiency. The 37430 series heatsinks are designed to provide superior cooling for Pentium 4 FMB2 microprocessors running at speeds of 3.06GHz and higher. The CoolFin heatsink features stamped fins that are linked together and soldered to a baseplate.

The inner fins, which sit directly above the heat source, are made of copper for maximum thermal efficiency.

The outer fins are made of aluminium to reduce weight.

CoolFin technology offers a broad range of choices in fin pitch, geometry, material type and thickness.

Molex heatsinks are available in multiple fan speeds for motherboards without variable fan speed technology, matching cooling requirements with acoustic needs.

Stick-it Flexible is a novel sticker-type heat radiation material for dissipating heat generated from electronic equipment during operation.
Stick-it Flexible is a novel sticker-type heat radiation material for dissipating heat generated from electronic equipment during operation. The Stick-it Flexible, developed by Oki with the collaboration with Ceramission Co, is quite flexible, and can be cut by scissors and stuck to even curved metallic surfaces. This product is based on the technology of heat-radiating liquid ceramic paint, which was also developed by two companies.

Oki will begin the shipment of the heat radiation sticker this month.

“The development of Stick-it Flexible and heat-radiating liquid ceramic paint are epoch-making because they can replace heatsinks, which occupy space in electronic equipment.

I believe these products match the market requirements for efficient downsizing and power-saving of electronic equipment”, said Harushige Sugimoto, President of Manufacturing Service Company at Oki Electric.

The new jointly developed Stick-it Flexible is an inorganic sticker coated with liquid ceramic paint.

This paint is environmentally friendly inorganic liquid, which dissipates the heat generated by electronic equipment using the excellent radiation characteristics of ceramics.

By painting a 50 to 150um thin coating on electronic devices and parts at room temperature, it realises a high radiation ratio of between 0.9 and 0.95 at around 80C, which reduces the heat of an operating electrical device by 5 to 20%.

The heat radiation sticker offers the same characteristics as those of the liquid ceramic paint.

It contains none of the chemicals required to register to a local government under the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) regulation.

The sticker is only 0.3mm thick, and so can be easily cut with scissors and stuck to even curved surfaces.

It can be stuck on aluminium, stainless steel, or even copper, nickel-plated steel sheet and epoxy resin - surfaces which are not easily coated with liquid ceramic paint.

It has a heat resistance of 120C, which is compliant with UL510 flame retardancy (FR), the flameproof standard for insulating tape.

The Stick-it Flexible and the ceramic paint can be used for wide range of devices, including power supplies, lighting equipment, and automobiles, replacing existing metal-plate heatsinks.

As a result, they minimise the size, extend the life cycle, and reduce the noise and power consumption in electronic equipment.

To give the earliest possible indication of possible hardware issues in server cabinets, APW has introduced an all-new version of its ARC active rack controller.
These days, 99% of companies are unable to trade when their network is down. And in a recent study, Cap Gemini Ernst and Young estimated that the cost of network downtime to major financial institutions such as banks could approach GBP 150,000 per minute. So, whatever the size of company, network integrity is obviously a critical business parameter.

While most network outages are software initiated, hardware failures also make their unwelcome contribution.

To give the earliest possible indication of possible hardware issues in server cabinets, APW has introduced an all-new version of its ARC active rack controller, giving network managers in the financial sector, government, data centres, insurance and other high availability areas improved functionality, easier configuration, more functionality and closer integration with the host network.

The ARC is a slimline enclosure that can be mounted outside the panel area (”zero U”) but it comes complete with a 19in rack-mount kit, giving the user the flexibility to place it almost anywhere in the cabinet.

The ARC is an intelligent controller.

It constantly monitors the cabinet’s environment for vibration, temperature and humidity; it can detect power outages, unauthorised door openings or panel removals, log security keypad operations and even be linked to a PIR movement sensor monitoring the computer room and a smoke detector mounted in the rack.

On receipt of an alarm condition, it can be programmed automatically to switch ventilation fans on or off, to broadcast alerts to the network administrator and to control UPS and PSUs if required.

The ARC can be assigned an IP address so that it can be remotely interrogated over the web; it is also Telnet and SNMP enabled.

It has eight independent digital input ports, each with a 12V power source and four controllable outputs, two mains switching and two 12V 1A switching circuits.