July 1, 2009
Furukawa Electric has recently launched a heat sink that uses the world's thinnest heat pipe 800 µm in thickness, to deal with the size and profile reductions in home information appliances. Use of this product makes it easier to design the cooling system of large-heat generating, low-profiled equipment.
This product has already been employed in Sony's new VAIO P Series Lifestyle PC -the world's lightest 8-inch notebook.
In view of market expansion in the future, Furukawa Electric plans to expand the production capacity for ultra-thin heat pipes thinner than 1 mm, by doubling the current capacity of 500 thousand pieces per month to 1 million pieces per month by the end of this year.
By downsizing and performance enhancement of heat sinks such as this, we intend to promote the total thermal solutions, in which the thermal management problems in home information appliances are resolved comprehensively.
Developmental Background
Heat pipes are extensively used in a wide range of cooling purposes where high thermal conductivity is needed, including cooling of CPUs, chip sets and CCDs in mobile equipment such as notebook PCs, mobile phones and PDAs; and cooling and thermal equalization of heat generating elements and surfaces in communications equipment such as routers in mobile communication base stations and automotive equipment such as car navigation systems.
Since its first delivery in the world of heat pipes to electrical appliance about 30 years ago, Furukawa Electric has continued to offer modern heat pipe-based heat sinks in response to the needs of the times.
In recent years, as the downsizing and weight reduction in home information appliances advance thus limiting the vacant spaces in equipment, there is a need for thin heat sinks. But, since thickness reduction in heat pipes results in a reduction in heat transport capacity (i.e., heat transport performance), this poses a technical problem to be overcome. Thus Furukawa Electric has realized, by employing a unique internal structure of heat pipe (patented), an innovative heat pipe 1 mm in thickness. We have recorded production of more than five million pieces of such heat pipes, followed by delivery of heat sinks using such heat pipes.
What is more, by concentrating our long-cultivated know-how and manufacturing technologies, we have now succeeded in, for the first time in the world, practical application of an ultra-thin heat pipe (800 µm in thickness) that has a heat transport capacity of 5 to 10 W despite its minimized thickness less than 1 mm, which has been considered to be difficult. Heat sinks using this heat pipe are applicable to heat-dissipating components in ultra-compact, ultra-low profiled mobile equipment such as netbook PCs, so that it is possible to achieve a higher level of heat dissipation than graphite sheets conventionally adopted, making cooling design easier.
Product Features
This heat sink that uses ultra-thin heat pipes 800 µm in thickness jointed with a thin heat-dissipating plate achieves high heat-dissipation performance that has never attained by graphite sheet having high heat conductivity, thus enabling an efficient temperature reduction at heat spots in heat-dissipating devices for low-profiled, compact mobile equipment. The heat sink is applicable to a broad range of equipment that are thought to be difficult to be cooled unless fans are used.
Use of this product facilitates the cooling design of large-heat generating, low-profiled, compact equipment.
Comparison of Thermal Performance
Power Input: 5 W
 Temperature distribution when graphite sheet is used. |
 Temperature distribution when 800-µm heat pipe-based heat sink is used. |
| Surface temperature when graphite sheet is used: 67°C | Surface temperature when 800-µm heat pipe-based heat sink is used: 50°C Thus temperature reduction in heat spots becomes possible. |
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