Abstract
This paper describes a new cooling solution for the thermal management of mobile electronics. A thin loop heat pipe (LHP) with a thickness of 0.6 mm for the evaporator was fabricated by using a chemical-etching and diffusion-bonding process for thin copper plates, and it was designed in a size of 107 mm×58 mm to be embedded in a smartphone. The thermal performance of the thin LHP was evaluated under various operating conditions by measuring the temperature, and its effect on the smartphone was demonstrated. The thermal resistance of 0.8 K/W between the thin LHP’s evaporator and condenser was achieved at 5 W, at an evaporator temperature of 50 ℃ in the horizontal operation of the thin LHP, and minimum resistance was 0.12 K/W at 20 W. We confirmed that the performance of the thin LHP slightly depends on its operating orientation.
