Module for cooling semiconductor device

Abstract

A module for cooling a heat generating element comprising a heat receiving plate thermally connected to at least one heat generating element; a heat transfer device one end portion of which is thermally connected to the heat receiving plate and other end portion of which is thermally connected to a heat dissipating plate; a thermoelectric cooler one face of which is thermally connected to one face of the heat dissipating plate; a first heat sink thermally connected to other face of the heat dissipating plate; and a second heat sink thermally connected to other face of said thermoelectric cooler.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present application is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 985,412, filed on 11 Nov. 2004, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. The Ser. No. 10 / 985,412 application claimed the benefit of the date of the earlier filed Provisional Application No. 60 / 552,149 filed 11 Mar. 2004. Priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(a) is also hereby claimed from Japanese Application No. 2004-221766, filed 29 July 2004, the disclosure of which is also incorporated herein by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to a cooling device for cooling an element to be cooled having a high heat generating density such as semiconductor elements using a thermoelectric cooler (which is also referred to as TEC), for example a Peltier cooler.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Recently, an electronic appliance includes high power and densely integrated components such as microprocessor there...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0016]One object of the invention is to provide a heat sink for cooling a semiconductor element generating a large amount of heat, which enlarges a temperature difference between the heat sink and the cooling air to improve a cooling efficiency.

[0017]Another object of the invention is to provide a module for cooling a high heat generating element which reduces the heat absorbed by the thermoelectric device to have a small power consumption with low fan noise, and enables to be applied to a small system, in addition to have a wide design choice.

[0018]Inventors have intensely studied to overcome the above-described problems in the conventional devices. As a result, it has been found that when at least part of the heat transferred to the heat receiving / spreading module from the heat generating source is transferred by the heat pipe to another direction to reduce the heat passing through the thermoelectric cooler, the temperature difference in the thermoelectric cooler can be enlarged so that the power consumption in the thermoelectric cooler is reduced to improve a heat efficiency of the cooling module.

[0019]Furthermore, it has been found that when the heat transferred by the heat pipe to another direction is thermally contacted with to the upper portion of the heat sink, the fan efficiency is improved and the heat efficiency of the cooling module can be improved, while a large heat sink is used as the heat sink connected to the thermoelectric cooler in the conventional device and the fan efficiency in the conventional device is about 80%.

[0023]In a fourth embodiment of the module for cooling a semiconductor element, said heat pipe comprises a U-shaped round heat pipe having a prescribed elasticity, said thermoelectric cooler and said first heat sink are arranged to be sandwiched by said second heat sink and said heat receiving / spreading device to lower a contact heat resistance.

[0030]Furthermore, the inventors have intensely studied to overcome the above described problems in the conventional devices. As a result, it has been found that the heat absorbed by the thermoelectric device can be reduced by the following module, i.e., the heat receiving plate and the heat dissipating plate are thermally connected by a heat transfer device, then a heat sink is thermally connected to one face of the heat dissipating plate and the thermoelectric device is thermally connected to the other face of the heat dissipating plate, and in addition, another heat sink is thermally connected to a heat dissipating face of the thermoelectric device. Together with the above, a prescribed temperature difference can be obtained while maintaining small power consumption of the thermoelectric device. As a result, it is possible to downsize a heat sink and to reduce noise of the fan, leading to downsizing the module. Furthermore, it has been found that since the heat receiving plate and the heat dissipating plate are thermally connected by the heat transfer device such as a heat pipe, cooling water pump or the like, the heat dissipating plate can be appropriately arranged, thus having a wide design choice.

Problems solved by technology

Since the microprocessor is densely integrated and processes computing and control at high speed, a large amount of heat is generated.

Furthermore, recently, since a semiconductor device processing high speed signal generates larger amount of heat, the above mentioned heat pipe does not fully cool the device.

However, there are the following problems in the conventional method in which the lower temperature side of the Peltier device is attached to the heat generating source while the higher temperature side of the Peltier device is attached to the heat sink.

When the heat from the heat generating source (for example, CPU) increases, the heat absorbing of the Peltier device (TEC) is not sufficient so that the thermal resistance of the cooling module rises.

More specifically, it becomes difficult to enlarge the temperature difference between the heat sink and the cooling air, thus deteriorating the cooling efficiency.

It becomes difficult to sufficiently cool the heat generating source by the thermoelectric device, when the heat from the CPU is over 120 W under the condition of a spreading resistance of 0.10 K / W in the heat receiving-spreading device.

However, it is difficult to control a thickness of the thermal grease, leading to a large variation of the contact resistance between components.

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