Heat pipes -integrated circuit coolers

Dissipation of heat from electronic components is a general phenomenon, and in the past several methods like the use of heat sinks, fans, coolers and convection methods have been used. The latest invention for cooling of electronic components is the heat pipes. The time of beginning of heat pipe science was near 40 years ago with first heat pipe definition and prediction of most simple cases. The interest stems in achieving extremely high heat flux near 1000 W/cm2, needed for the future generation electronic cooling application. Now at the computer age some changes of basic equations are performed, more powerful predicting methods are available with increasing awareness of complexity of heat pipes and new heat pipe generations. But even today heat pipes are not completely understood and solution strategies still contain significant simplifications depending upon its applications. Micro and miniature heat pipes have some additional complications due to its small size. A review of heat pipes is presented in this paper.