Implementing spray cooling thermal management in high heat flux applications

Rising microprocessor power and increasing transistor densities are resulting in local hotspots that possess increasingly unmanageable heat densities. The paper discusses current state-of-the-art air-cooled heatsinks and their ability to deal with such hotspots. The emerging role that spray cooling plays in providing an alternative technology that allows for the effective handling of these hotspots, as well as overall microprocessor power levels, is presented in a comparative fashion.