Heat exchange device

This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 to European Patent Application No. 08155086.5 filed in Europe on Apr. 24, 2008, the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a heat exchange device, e.g. a heat sink, in particular to a heat exchange device having fins and to a power module comprising such a heat exchange device. Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure also relate to a method of manufacturing a heat exchange device.

Advances in integrated circuit technology have resulted in integrated circuit devices having increased circuit density, increased clocking frequencies, and increased power consumption per volume. As a result, advanced integrated circuit devices such as microprocessors generate substantial amounts of heat. To maintain the performance and prevent degradation due to heat, an integrated circuit is typically coupled to a heat sink to transfer and dissipate heat away from the integrated circuit device. A known heat sink is made of plain metal and has a base and fins. A heat exchange device can be active (externally powered, e.g. by a fan) or passive (not externally powered and typically involving convective air flow).

In order to dissipate the increasing amounts of heat efficiently from components such as electric devices, one might think that it is sufficient to simply increase the heat sink size, e.g. by increasing the fin height. However, doing so the fin efficiency decreases, mainly because of the limited thermal conductivity of the fins. As a consequence, the performance increase will not be proportional to the size increase but instead saturates at some point.

U.S. Pat. No. 7,150,312 B2 describes a cooling system having a stacked array of low profile heat pipes each with a plurality of micro tubes extended therethrough. The stacked low profile heat pipes are placed into thermal connection with heat producing components. A heat transfer fluid is contained in the micro tubes of the low profile heat pipes and removes the heat from the heat producing components.

However, the above systems still leave room for improvements in particular regarding their heat transport efficiency, their manufacturing cost, and their weight.

Exemplary embodiments disclosed herein are directed to a heat exchange device, a power unit comprising at least one of such heat exchange device and a method for producing such a heat exchange device.

A heat exchange device is disclosed comprising: a base that is thermally connectable with at least one heat emitting device for receiving heat, and a plurality of fins, which are in thermal contact with the base to allow heat transport from the base to an outer surface of the fins, wherein at least one fin is a multi-port tube comprising a plurality of channels, and wherein the fins are arranged in at least one first row and at least one second row to a matrix extending in a first direction and in a second direction, wherein at least one of the first row and the second row extends in the first direction.

A method of manufacturing a heat exchange device is disclosed, comprising the steps of: a) providing a base and a plurality of fins, wherein at least one of said fins comprises a multi-port tube with a plurality of channels; b) thermally coupling the plurality of fins to the base such that a matrix is formed, wherein said matrix comprises at least a first row and at least one second row, c) introducing a working fluid into at least one of the plurality of fins and the base; and d) preventing the working fluid from escaping off the at least one of the plurality of fins and the base.