Advanced Heat Sinks Enabled by Three-Dimensional Printing

With the rapid rise in power dissipated by integrated circuits, improved heat sinks designs are needed to decrease the thermal resistance between them and forced air streams. Manufacturing methods such as extrusion, machining and die-casting have been used to fabricate conventional longitudinal fin designs. Although these technologies add relatively little cost, they preclude the fabrication of more complex heat sink designs. We discuss novel heat sink designs which increase surface area and/or modulate air flow streams. Fabrication of these unconventional designs is enabled by using 3D printing technologies with the subsequent conversion of the printed parts into monolithic copper structures by investment casting.Mechanical Engineerin