Proceedings of theof

Proceedings ASME 2010 International

the ASME International Mechanical
Mechanical Engineering
Engineering Congress
Congress && Exposition
Exposition
IMECE2010
IMECE2010
November
November 12-18,
12-18, 2010,
2010, Vancouver,
Vancouver, British
British Columbia,
Columbia, Canada
Canada

IMECE2010-37
IMECE2010-37817

HOT SPOT MITIGATING WITH OBLIQUE FINNED MICROCHANNEL HEAT SINK

Yong-Jiun Lee, Poh-Seng Lee, Siaw-Kiang Chou

Department of Mechanical Engineering
National University of Singapore
Singapore

ABSTRACT
Sectional oblique fins are employed in contrast to
continuous fins in order to modulate the flow in microchannel
heat sink. The breakage of continuous fin into oblique sections
leads to re-initialization of boundary layers and generation of
secondary flows which significantly enhance the cooling
performance of the heat sink. In addition, oblique finned
microchannel heat sink has the flexibility to tailor local heat
transfer performance by varying its oblique fin pitch. Clusters
of oblique fins at higher density can be created in order to
promote greater degree of boundary layers redevelopment and
secondary flows generation to provide more effective cooling at
the high heat flux region. Thus the varying of oblique fin pitch
can be exploited for hot spots mitigation. Simulation studies of
silicon chip with hot spot shows more than 100% increment in
local heat transfer coefficient at the high heat flux region for the
variable pitch oblique finned microchannel compared with the
conventional microchannel heat sink. Both the maximum
temperature and its temperature gradient are reduced by 12.4°C
as a result. Interestingly, there is only little or negligible
pressure drop penalty associated with this novel heat transfer
enhancement scheme in contrast to conventional enhancement
techniques.
KEY WORDS: enhanced microchannel, oblique fins, variable
pitch, hotspot cooling
INTRODUCTION
The continuous miniaturization of electronic devices
coupled with advanced packaging technology led to the ever-
increasing packaging densities and the associated heat fluxes
that need to be dissipated. On top of that, the variation in
transistor activities of different functional module results in
highly non-uniform heat flux generation leading to significant
spatial and temporal temperature changes as shown by Watwe
and Viswanath [1] through the power map of a silicon chip.
According to Watwe and Viswanath [1], heat fluxes on the hot
spots can be five to ten times higher than the average heat flux
of the chip. Increment in die temperature and temperature
gradient accelerates the meantime to failure (MTTF) and
reduces the lifespan of electronic devices exponentially as
described by Black’s equation [2]. In addition, the hot spots are
unique that although their heat fluxes are extremely high, the
total power to be dissipated is low due to their small sizes.
Unfortunately, conventional thermal management techniques
such as air-cooled heat sink and cold plate are fast approaching
their limits and cannot effectively handle the localized hot
spots. The implementation of conventional thermal management
techniques, which are designed to provide uniform chip cooling,
would result in either lower allowable chip power dissipation or
unnecessary overcooling of large chip areas at the expense of
increased pressure drop and pumping power. Thus, new thermal
management strategies must be developed to facilitate effective
non-uniform heat flux dissipation as well as hotspot temperature
management.
Bar-Cohen et al. [3] reviewed the potential of several direct
liquid cooling methods in controlling chip hot spots. Pool
boiling, gas-assisted evaporative cooling, jet impingement and
spray cooling are among the potential candidates in hot spot
mitigation, utilizing the very high heat transfer coefficient from
the boiling of liquid dielectric. However, the application of
these techniques is currently limited by the inconsistency in
boiling, jet/spraying as well as potential dry out that might
occur. Cho et al. [4] experimentally investigated two-phase heat
transfer in microchannel heat sinks with hot spots. For the 1D
hot spot configuration (a strap of hot spot across the flow
direction), their concept of cross-linking the channels showed
much lower temperature than conventional microchannel heat
sink, primarily due to lateral flow mixing effect. Brunschwiler
et al. [5] on the other hand altered their cold plate in order to
address the hot spots issue. In their simulation study, hot spots
are shadowed by an array of jet nozzle, where the jet velocity
can be throttled in accordance to the heat flux level of each hot
spot. A 28% and 43% reduction in flow rate and system

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 pumping power were respectively achieved compared to the
unaltered cold plate if 20°C junction-to-inlet temperature
difference is allowed. A fluid-to-fluid spot-to-spreader (F2/S2)
hybrid heat sink was introduced by Green et al. [6] as an
integrated chip-level and hot spot-level thermal management
technique. The heat sink employs two separate fluids, which are
distinct and do not mix directly, for cooling the hot spots and
background heat flux. Fluid 1 is a high performance coolant
with superior thermal properties that is used solely to extract
heat from the hot spots while Fluid 2 can be liquid or gas (e.g.
air) that is used to dissipate the background heat flux. However,
both the tailored made cold plate and F2/S2 hybrid heat sink
require complicated manifold design for the coolant distribution
and collection, especially when the electronic chip has multiple
hot spots. Lee and Garimella [7] proposed a simple hot spot
mitigation scheme by creating recess at the cover lid just before
the hot spot. This technique exploits the boundary layer re-
initializing effect to locally enhancing the heat transfer.
Anisotropic thermal interface materials were introduced by
Bachmann and Bar-Cohen [8] to laterally conduct the heat away
from the hot spot towards the cooler areas of the chip. They
adopted the conductivity transformation method to model the
anisotropic thermal conductivity of annealed graphite, showing
substantial hot spot suppression over the isotropic spreader.
Moreover, annealed graphite is more cost effective than thick
silicon spreader while lighter than copper spreader. On the other
hand, thermoelectric (TE) device provides active cooling with
no moving parts. Its poor coefficient of performance (COP)
however rendered it an infeasible solution to cooling the entire
chip. Despite the limited application for bulk TE material,
researchers seriously explore the potential of micro-
thermoelectric cooler (µTEC) in hot spot thermal management.
Wang et al. [9] demonstrated that the miniaturized silicon
thermoelectric cooler is able to eliminate 80% of the
temperature rise of a 70µm × 70µm hot spot with a 680W/cm2
heat flux. Besides, extensive simulation and experimental
investigations are performed on super-lattice µTEC which is
attributed with relatively higher value of TEC Figure-Of-Merit,
faster response time and reduced joule heating [10-16].
Recently, the concept of sectional oblique fins in
microchannel heat sink was proposed by Lee et al. [17]. Their
numerical simulation demonstrated that significant local and
global heat transfer enhancements can be achieved with
negligible pressure drop penalty, through the combined effect of
thermal boundary layers redevelopment and generation of
secondary flows. This concept is unique that the fin pitch can be
varied to tailor the heat transfer performance locally. The
present study is a continuation to the work by Lee et al. [17]
which serves to explore the capability of oblique fins with
variable fin pitch for hot spot mitigation.
MICROCHANNEL GEOMETRY CONSIDERATION
The present work adopts sectional oblique fins to replace
the conventional continuous fins in microchannel heat sink
application. Plan view of the enhanced microchannel and the
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corresponding flow paths for main and secondary flows are
illustrated in Fig. 1.
Figure 1: Plan view of microchannel heat sink with oblique fins.
In this configuration, oblique cuts are made along the fins
to create smaller branching channels which serve to 1) disrupt
the boundary layers development, and 2) generate secondary
flows. The combined effect leads to the thinning of thermal
boundary layer which promotes better heat transfer than the
conventional microchannel configuration. The current design is
inspired by the louvered fin structure of an air-cooled heat
exchanger. Such heat exchanger has its closely packed slit fins
rotated at 20° to 45° relative to the air flow direction in order to
promote better heat transfer. However, there are clear
distinction in the treatment for the flow regime between
louvered fin heat exchanger and oblique finned microchannel
heat sink. The flow within louvered fin heat exchanger can be
treated as a boundary layer flow with most of the fluid traveling
parallel to the louvers. Webb and Kim [18] also pointed out that
heat transfer coefficient on the louver can be well-approximated
with the Pohlhausen solution for laminar flow over a flat plate
with constant heat flux. On the other hand, for the current
microchannel configuration, the oblique channels are sized such
that only a small fraction of flow is induced into the oblique
openings (channels).
In a variable pitch oblique finned microchannel heat sink
configuration, fin pitch can be varied locally, resulting in
clusters of oblique fin at different densities. Shorter fin pitch
leads to closely packed oblique fins and channels resulting in
more intense thermal boundary layer redevelopment and
secondary flows generation. Consequently, local heat transfer
performance is further enhanced. Conversely, longer fin pitch
reduces the number of oblique fin as well as the associated heat
transfer enhancement. Clearly, denser oblique fin cluster can be
deployed at hot spots to provide more effective heat removal
while sparser oblique fin cluster is used to dissipate the lower
background heat flux without overcooling the chip. A potential
2 Copyright © 2010 by ASME
 embodiment of variable pitch oblique finned microchannel heat Characteristic Conventional Oblique finned
sink is shown in Fig. 2. microchannel microchannel
Constant Variable
pitch pitch
Major fin pitch, p1 - 1200 1200
(µm)
Major fin length, l1 - 1070 1070
(µm)
Minor fin pitch, p2 - - 400
(µm)
Minor fin length, l2 - - 270
(µm)

In order to facilitate a fair performance comparison, all the

heat sinks used in this simulation study have same aspect ratio,
channel width, fin width on a similar footprint. Apart from these
common geometrical characteristics, the oblique finned
microchannel with constant pitch has openings that are
Figure 2: Plan view of variable pitch oblique finned obliquely cut at 26.4° from the main channel with a pitch of
microchannel heat sink with hot spot. 1200µm. The oblique channel width is 65µm and the resultant
fin length in this case is 1070µm. As for variable pitch
Variable pitch oblique finned microchannel heat sink is configuration, oblique cuts of the same width but smaller pitch
effective especially for multiple hot spots configuration, where of 400µm are created directly on top of the hot spot. Figure 3
the denser fin clusters can be positioned directly on top of the displays plan view of the variable pitch oblique fins
hot spots. The present work investigates the hot spot cooling configuration employed in the simulation study.
performance of a variable pitch oblique finned microchannel
heat sink. Comparisons are made with constant fin pitch and
conventional microchannel configurations. For this simulation
study, a strip of hot spot measured at 12.7mm × 2.54mm (0.5in
× 0.1in) is located at the center of a 12.7mm × 12.7mm (0.5in ×
0.5in) silicon chip across the coolant flow direction. The
geometries for the oblique finned and conventional
microchannel heat sinks used in the simulation study are
tabulated in Table 1.

Table 1: Dimensional details for microchannel heat sinks

(All dimensions are in mm unless otherwise stated)
Characteristic Conventional Oblique finned Figure 3: Plan view of variable pitch oblique fins with
microchannel microchannel dimensions
Constant Variable
pitch pitch SIMULATION MODEL SETUP
Material Silicon All the models for the conventional microchannel and
Heat sink footprint, 12.7 × 12.7 oblique finned microchannel heat sinks are generated using
width × length (mm2) GAMBIT v2.3. As illustrated in Fig. 3, enhanced microchannel
Number of channel, 62 with oblique fins exhibited a periodically repeating pattern
N spanwise. Thus, periodic boundary condition is used to reduce
Main channel width, 100 the computation domain to a fin-channel pair consisting of full
wc (µm) width oblique fins at the centre and two half-width main
Fin width, ww (µm) 100 channels on each side. The flow entering the computational
Channel depth, H 400 model through one periodic plane is identical to the flow exiting
(µm) the domain through the opposite periodic plane [19]. The
Oblique channel - 65 enlarged view of the computational domain is showed in Fig. 4.
width, wob (µm)
Oblique angel, θ (°) - 26.4

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Figure 4: Enlarged view of the computational domain for
oblique finned microchannel heat sink.
The top surface of oblique fins, oblique channels and main
channels are first meshed with quad-pave scheme with a 10 µm
spacing spanwise and 10 µm spacing streamwise. Volume mesh
for main channel, oblique fins and oblique channels are
subsequently generated with hex/wedge-copper scheme with 10
µm spacing in longitudinal direction. Next, the volume for
bottom substrate (heater) is created with hex/wedge-copper
scheme with 10 µm spacing in longitudinal direction tracing the
surface mesh from main channel, oblique fins and oblique
channels at the interface. A total of 1,639,715 hexahedral cells
are generated for the computational domain.
On the other hand, symmetry boundary condition is
adopted at the center of fin and channel for the conventional
microchannel heat sink configuration. The symmetry boundary
condition assumes that there is no fluid flow and heat transfer
across the symmetry boundary surface. This effectively reduces
the simulation domain to half of the channel-fin pair. The
microchannel edges are then meshed by interval spacing of 5
µm (spanwise), 10 µm (longitudinal) and 25 µm (streamwise)
resulting in 20 × 65 × 508 grid. Both fluid and solid regions are
meshed with hex-map scheme and hex-submap scheme
respectively. A total of 660,400 hexahedral cells are generated.
The simulations are executed with the general purpose
commercial CFD software, FLUENT v6.3. Upon exporting the
mesh files to FLUENT, 3D double-precision pressure based
solver is selected with standard SIMPLE algorithm as its
pressure-velocity coupling method. Standard discretization
scheme is used for the pressure equation while second order
upwind discretization scheme is selected for both the
momentum and energy equations. As for the material selection,
water-liquid is assigned with the thermophysical properties
evaluated at mean fluid temperature (average fluid inlet and
outlet temperature). The temperature-dependant thermophysical
properties of water are adapted from Incropera [20] as
followed:
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Density,
a0 + a1T + a2T 2 + a3T 3 + a4T 4 + a5T 5
ρ (T ) = (10)
1 + bT
a0 = 999.8396 a4 = 1.49756 ×10-7
a1 = 18.22494 a5 = -3.93295 ×10-10
a2 = -7.92221×10-3 b = 1.81597 ×10-2
a3 = -5.54485 ×10-5 T has the unit of °C
Specific heat capacity,
c p ( T ) = 8958.9 − 40.535T + 0.11243T 2 − 1.0138 × 10−4 T 3 (11)
Thermal conductivity,
k (T ) = −0.58166 + 6.3555 ×10−3 T − 7.9643 ×10−6 T 2 (12)
Dynamic viscosity,
 247.8 
µ (T ) = 2.414 ×10−5 ×10 T −140 
 
(13)
On the other hand, silicon with constant thermal
conductivity, ks = 148 W/mK is selected as fins and heat sink
substrate material. A residual of 10-6 is set as the convergence
criteria for continuity equation, x-velocity, y-velocity and z-
velocity while that for the energy equation is set as 10-9.
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
For all the three cases considered, fully developed velocity
boundary condition with an average velocity of 2 m/s is
assigned to the inlet. The corresponding volumetric flow rate
across one single channel is 4.8 mL/min while the total
volumetric flow rate across the heat sink is 298 mL/min. The
corresponding Reynolds number, Re in the main channels is
367. Pressure outlet boundary condition is assigned to the
outlets, where the flow is assumed to reach atmospheric
pressure at the outlet of the microchannels.
Background and hot spot heat fluxes of 100 W/cm2 and
400W/cm2 respectively are imposed at the bottom of the heat
sink while the top surface of silicon chip is assumed adiabatic.
GRID-INDEPENDENCE
Grid independence studies are conducted for the
computational models adopted for the conventional and
enhanced microchannel heat sinks to ensure that the chosen
meshes are sufficiently fine to capture the important flow
physics. The resultant local Nusselt number from different
meshes used are in close proximity to each other. For instance,
the local Nusselt numbers of 4.84, 4.67 and 4.54 were obtained
with grids of 15 × 44 × 363 cells, 20 × 65 × 508 cells and 34 ×
93 × 635 cells, respectively for the case of conventional
microchannel at z = 10 mm. The local Nusselt number varies by
3.51% from the first to the second mesh, and only by 2.78%
upon further refinement to the finest grid. Thus, the
intermediate grid (20 × 65 × 508 cells) was selected. On the
other hand, local Nusselt numbers of 13.19, 12.50 and 12.30 are
obtained with grids of 14 × 44 × 847 cells, 20 × 65 × 1270 cells
and 29 × 93 × 1815 cells, respectively for the case of variable
pitch oblique finned microchannel at z = 10.2 mm. The
4 Copyright © 2010 by ASME
 variations in local Nusselt numbers are 5.20% from the first to
the second mesh, and 1.60% from second to the finest grid.
Likewise, the intermediate grid (20 × 65 × 1270 cells) was
selected.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The introduction of oblique cuts along the continuous fin
disrupts the boundary layers development and promotes
secondary flow generation. The distinction between the flow
fields of both configurations is clearly illustrated by the velocity
contours in Fig. 5.
(a) (b)
Figure 5: Velocity (in m/s) contour of flow inside (a)
conventional microchannel; (b) oblique finned microchannel
heat sinks.
Figure 5(a) illustrates the mid-plane velocity profile of
fluid in the conventional microchannel, showing consistent
velocity contour throughout the channel. This velocity contour
suggests that the hydrodynamic boundary layer is fully
developed and merged at the centre of the channel. Without any
disturbance/disruption to the flow field, the fully developed
velocity profile was maintained throughout the flow passage
after a short entrance length. On the other hand, the breakage of
the continuous fin into oblique sections interrupts the velocity
profile at the trailing edge of each section as evident from Fig.
5(b). The discontinuity with the downstream fin caused the
boundary layer development to restart from the leading edge of
next downstream section. In addition, oblique fin section is
short in length, which limits the development of boundary layer
as compared to conventional long continuous fin. The
regeneration of the entrance effect causes the flow to be always
in a developing state, which promotes better heat transfer. In
addition, the oblique channels divert a fraction of the flow from
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the main channel into them as illustrated in the velocity vector
plot of Fig. 6.
Figure 6: Velocity vector of flow inside the enhanced
microchannel showing a fraction of the flow branching into
oblique channel.
Oblique channel width, channel angle and fin pitch are
designed such that a small percentage of coolant from the main
channel is diverted into oblique channels. The secondary flows
thus created, where the coolant travels along the oblique
channel before it is subsequently being injected back into the
adjacent main channel. Upon convergence, they disrupt the
boundary layers further as well as promote better fluid mixing,
leading up to further heat transfer augmentation. The unique
oblique fin design modulates the flow and creates a repeatedly
developing flow field. Moreover, the oblique cuts introduced
additional area for convective heat transfer.
With the combination of boundary layer redevelopment,
secondary flows generation and additional heat transfer area,
the cooling performance of oblique finned microchannel heat
sink is greatly augmented, giving rise to both lower maximum
temperature and temperature gradient on the heat sink and
electronic device. This improvement can be significant
considering the hot spot is located some distance away from the
channel inlet where the cooling performance of conventional
microchannel heat sink has deteriorated due to the continuous
thickening of thermal boundary layers. This leads to elevated
temperature at the hot spot, which adversely affecting chip
performance and device reliability. In a variable pitch
configuration, cooling performance at the hot spot region can be
further enhanced with shorter pitch fin cluster. Locally, the re-
5 Copyright © 2010 by ASME
 initialization of thermal boundary layer and generation of
secondary flows occur at higher frequency, resulting in
significantly higher heat removal capability.
Figure 7 displays the temperature profiles at the bottom
wall of three heat sinks. Conventional microchannel heat sink
shows the highest wall temperature at the hot spot region with a
maximum temperature of 66.7°C while constant pitch oblique
finned microchannel heat sink on the other hand registered a
maximum temperature of 60.3°C. Variable pitch oblique finned
thermal boundary layer reduces the heat transfer coefficient and
the corresponding cooling performance. As for variable pitch
oblique finned microchannel heat sink, a similar peak-and-
valley heat transfer coefficient profile is observed. However, the
heat transfer coefficient is kept relatively high (~80,000W/m2K)
at hot spot region due to higher occurrence of thermal boundary
layer re-initialization and secondary flows at the finer pitch
oblique fin cluster.
120

microchannel further lowers the maximum temperature of the

heat transfer coefficient, h (x1000

100
hot spot to 54.3°C. By adopting sectional oblique fin
configuration, the temperature reduction at the hot spot region 80
can be as large as 12.4°C. Temperature gradient, which is

W/m2K)
defined as the difference between the maximum and minimum 60

of heat sink bottom wall temperature displays the similar

40
decreasing trend. The temperature gradients of the
conventional, constant pitch and variable pitch oblique finned 20
Hot spot
microchannel heat sink are 38.4°C, 32.0°C and 26.0°C
0
respectively. Thus, the variable pitch oblique finned 0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012
microchannel heat sink is able to suppress the temperature spike streamwise position, z (m)
due to the hot spot. constant pitch variable pitch conventional
70
Figure 8: Comparison of heat transfer coefficients for
65
microchannel heat sinks.
Heater temperature, Th (°C)

60

55 The most interesting feature of the proposed scheme is that

50 the significant heat transfer augmentation is achieved with little
45 or negligible pressure drop penalty. From the earlier numerical
40
work by the Lee et al. [17], it was shown that the periodic
35
redevelopment of the hydrodynamic boundary layers coupled
with the generation of secondary flows actually resulted in the
30
increase of local pressure drop at each oblique section.
25
Hot Spot However, what is interesting is there is an accompanying local
20
0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012
pressure recovery (due to the flow diverging at oblique
streamwise position, z (m) channels) which more or less compensates the increament in
variable pitch constant pitch conventional
local pressure drop due to the thinning of hydrodynamic
boundary layers. The net result is the constant pitch oblique
Figure 7: Temperature profiles at bottom wall of heat sinks.
finned microchannel heat sink having a comparable pressure
drop with the conventional microchannel heat sink as illustrated
The concept of variable pitch oblique finned microchannel
in Fig 9. This distinguishes the proposed scheme from the
cooling is unique where fin pitch and the corresponding cooling
conventional passive heat transfer enhancement schemes which
performance can be locally tailored to address the non-uniform
usually incur a pressure drop penalty. For instance, pin-fin heat
heat flux distribution commonly encountered in actual
sinks achieve improved thermal performance over plate-fin heat
electronics. This is further illustrated in Fig. 8, where the local
sinks by disrupting the development of the thermal boundary
heat transfer coefficient profiles of three heat sinks are
layer in a unidirectional flow direction at the expense of a hefty
compared. As expected, conventional microchannel heat sink
pressure drop penalty [21].
has a very high heat transfer coefficient (~100,000W/m2K) at
the inlet region due to the entrance effect. The heat transfer
coefficient however, quickly diminishes as coolant flows
downstream resulting in poorer convective heat transfer
(~20,000W/m2K). In contrast, the constant pitch oblique finned
microchannel heat sink demonstrates a periodically repeating
peak-and-valley heat transfer coefficient profile. The peaks
correspond to the leading edges of the oblique fin where
thermal boundary layer is re-initialized and secondary flow is
generated. As the coolant travels downstream, the growth of

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 40000 Having the ability of tailoring the local heat transfer
performance, the variable pitch oblique finned microchannel
35000
heat sink offers an attractive solution for the mitigation of hot
Static pressure, P (Pa)

30000 spots which is fast becoming a critical issue for electronics

25000 especially when this passive technique incurs little or negligible
pressure drop penalty. In addition, this technique does not
20000
require overcooling of the entire chip to suppress hot spots and
15000 hence is more energy efficient.
10000
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
5000
Hot Spot This research was supported by the Singapore Ministry of
0 Education Academic Research Fund (Tier 1) Grant number R-
0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012
265-000-264-133.
streamwise position, z (m)
variable pitch constant pitch conventional
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Figure 9: Pressure drop profiles of microchannel heat sinks. [1] A. Watwe and R. Viswanath, “Thermal implications of non-
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Figure 9, on the other hand shows that variable pitch 2003 ASME InterPACK, IPACK2003-35044, 2003.
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Percentage of secondary mass flow

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[4] E. S. Cho, J. M. Koo, L. Jiang, R. S. Prasher, M. S. Kim, J.
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Figure 10: Percentage of secondary flow rate for constant pitch
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with the same pump.
CONCLUSION
Simulation study on variable pitch oblique finned
microchannel heat sink demonstrates its effectiveness in
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7 Copyright © 2010 by ASME

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