ACT expands performance of VME / VPX cards with high-conductivity heat spreaders

Advanced Cooling Technologies announces key developments in their embedded-computing cooling products. For several years, ACT has provided mission-critical thermal products for VME, VPX, ATR, and other embedded-computing cards and chassis that operate in military and industrial environments. Recent trends have shown increased need for heat spreading due to higher per-card power. With this in mind, ACT has developed thinner and more capable heat spreaders. ACT's HiK embedded-heat-pipe spreaders conform to all critical VITA standards for embedded-computing cards and have thermal conductivity greatly exceeding aluminum or copper. In real-world tested heat spreaders for VME and VPX cards have shown bulk thermal conductivities of 550 to 750 W/mK. In addition, ACT can manufacture HiK heat spreaders ultra thin (from 0.072") for weight- and space-limited applications. Heat pipes operate in a closed loop, utilizing liquid to vapor phase change resulting in very efficient heat transport. They can be bent and flattened into thin plates, moving heat directly from the source components to the heat sink. ACT will embed heat pipes only where necessary. This process is cost effective compared to other similarly performing products. In most embedded computing applications, a few high-power components such as CPUs, FPGAs, and other various components create the majority of the thermal load. Using typical metallic spreaders, relying on conduction, a hot spot will form around these components. ACT's HiK spreaders can greatly reduce this hot spot by spreading heat from the source component to the edge of the card. In addition, the heat pipes will spread the heat along the card edge, creating better heat transfer through the wedge lock and into the chassis. ACT will exhibit its HiK spreaders at Design East booth 721, September 18 and 19 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA. Advanced Cooling Technologies HiK product deeplink