A Comprehensive Study in Thermal Dissipation Assessment of Hard Disk Drive Component

With the demand increases in data storage capacity and high-speed data transfer rate, the controller components of hard disk drive (HDD) need more power to serve the higher level of electrical function performance. Therefore, an optimal thermal design for HDD components to ensure HDD operating under safe temperature environment becomes very important for suppliers to successfully bring HDD product into market. In this study, a HDD component was attached onto a metal block that is a part of HDD body implemented to enhance thermal dissipation. Several thermal designs from component to HDD module will be addressed to achieve the chips running below industry specification of 125degC. Firstly, two different metal block designs were evaluated with experimental analyses. Next, different screw material that uses to fasten PCB board and HDD and different thermal pad thickness that between HDD component and metal block are evaluated. Finally, different test section, ambient temperature and power consumption effect was also evaluated. After experimental analyses finished, the simulation model with a commercial finite differential analysis (FDA) program, Flotherm, was conducted to find the best thermal solution for three different HDD component structures including plastic ball grid array (PBGA), BGA with exposed drop-in heat spreader and thin fine pitch BGA. The conclusion of this study indicates the thin fine pitch BGA package with high thermal conductivity molding compound was the optimal installation for greatest thermal benefit for HDD component.