Research progress of the liquid cold plate cooling technology for server electronic chips: A review

Abstract

A significant quantity of research has been dedicated to the application of liquid cold plates to eliminate the high heat flux in server electronic chips. Traditional parallel straight microchannel liquid cold plates suffer from low heat flux density with uneven flow distribution, which poses a serious challenge to high-performance server chip heat dissipation. This paper reviews recent research progress in geometry optimization, interrupted structures, channel patterns, and two-phase flow of liquid cold plates. The optimal geometry parameters of rectangular cross-sectional microchannels including the aspect ratio, length, and hydraulic diameter are summarized. Inquest of higher thermal performance, various interrupted structures (ribs, pin fins, etc.), special channel patterns (wavy-shaped, zigzag-shaped, fractal, serpentine, and double-layered microchannels, etc.), and two-phase flow on the liquid cold plate are applied to promote fluid-turbulivity and increase heat transfer area, meanwhile they lead to more pressure drop. Furthermore, it is an essential approach to commercialize liquid cold plates by applying the academic and prototype of the liquid cold plate to manufacturing and liquid cooling system solutions. In the end, this review provides a discussion about the limitations of current research on liquid cold plates and an outlook on future research directions.