Thermal Management of Mobile Phone using Phase Change Material

The power of the handheld electronics devices continues to increase because packaging advances reduce their size even as more features are added and enhanced. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical simulation is performed on thermal management of the mobile phone using a heat storage unit (HSU) filled with the phase change material (PCM). The chips and HSU are embedded in an epoxy polymer casing. The PCM absorbs the heat dissipation from the chips and stores as latent heat to maintain the chip temperature below the allowable service temperature. Eight cases of simulations are carried out with or without PCM at several power dissipations. The use of PCM in mobile phone has shown to be effective in keeping the chip temperature down to acceptable level for certain duration.