Development of vapour chamber-based VGA thermal module

Abstract

【Purpose】 The purpose of this paper is to describe how a traditional metal base plate is replaced with a vapour chamber, a two‐phase flow heat transfer module with high heat transfer efficiency, to effectively reduce the temperature of heat sources as graphic processing unit (GPU) of smaller area and higher power. 【Design/methodology/approach】 As a first step, the nature of flow field of a vapour chamber‐based thermal module with heat sink is simulated and analysed through computational numerical method. Second, a sample is prepared according to the theoretical results and the performance of thermal modules is tested together with thermal performance experiment. 【Findings】 The results show that when the fin height from vapour chamber top to fan bottom area is more than 3 mm and not more than 8 mm, the vapour chamber‐based thermal module can achieve the optimum heat dissipation and the maximum heat flux may exceed 90 W/cm2. Also, when copper fins are 3 mm in height, 0.2 mm in thickness, 53 in number and spaced out 1.0 mm apart, the optimum total thermal resistance of a vapour chamber‐based thermal module is 0.28 ○C/W. 【Originality/value】 The Sapphire Atomic HD3870 of Video Graphics Array module for AMD RV670XT using MicroLoops vapour chamber has greater thermal performance than the AMD reference dual slot thermal module. So, AMD latest GPU is considered to be the vapour chamber thermal cooler to solve the higher power consumption.