Amulaire Thermal Technology Introduces Liquid-Cooled Cold Plates for Desktop PC and IGBT Markets.

SAN DIEGO -- Unique Metal Injection Molding Manufacturing Capabilities Enable Unprecedented Design Flexibility, for Size, Weight, Thermal Performance and Cost Advantages

Amulaire Thermal Technology, a thermal management company, has announced liquid-cooled cold plate products for two major markets: desktop PCs and power semiconductors such as insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), devices that switch power in power supplies and motor control applications. Taking advantage of Amulaire's proprietary metal injection molding manufacturing technologies, the company can mold cold plates out of copper in essentially any shape conceivable, without machining, and produce them in high volume.

As a result, Amulaire's cold plates offer significant advantages for the two markets:

-- For desktop PCs: Amulaire enables copper cold plates with complex shapes and fin designs, with no penalty for the designer, that deliver increased thermal performance while helping to reduce the overall cost of the liquid cooling system.

-- For IGBTs and other power semiconductors: Amulaire enables cold plates of optimal design shape and size, in copper, that can be manufactured quickly and cost-effectively for greater efficiency, better thermal performance and high reliability.

Thermal Issues & Liquid Cooling Gaining Importance

As high-performance semiconductors generate more heat, and as shrinking circuit sizes accelerate an increase in power density, designers are challenged to develop heat dissipation solutions that are effective, practical and affordable. For some applications -- e.g., desktop PCs pushed to run even faster than their designs allow, or systems that need to be cooled quietly for use in living or family rooms, or high-power IGBT modules that might produce 3000W each or more -- liquid cooling becomes the heat dissipation method of choice, for its high thermal performance and low noise.

Cold plates are a crucial part of liquid cooling systems, transferring heat from the heat source (CPU or IGBT, for example) into liquid circulating in tubes to a heat exchanger, where a small attached fan blows excess heat outside the system. Current cold plates are designed to be machined and are therefore restricted to very simple fin or channel patterns while also suffering the high costs of machining. In addition, cost pressures sometimes dictate machining cold plates out of aluminum, which is less expensive than copper but is a much worse conductor of heat.

"Amulaire is taking liquid-cooled cold plates to a new generation because we can injection mold in copper, in high volume, essentially any shape or design that can be created in plastic -- without machining or soldering," said Paul Hoffman, Amulaire's CEO. "By increasing both the fin density and the complexity of the cold plate design, Amulaire enables even higher thermal performance from liquid cooling systems. Designers can now choose cold plates with the optimal shapes, pin and fin configurations, materials and thermal performance to achieve their specific design goals."

Amulaire's highly flexible metal injection molding processes enable the company to make cold plates with features such as the following:

--Fins that go in multiple directions on a single cold plate

--Fins at any angle, curved or in any pattern required

--More pin fins (to increase the surface area of the cold plate and enhance thermal performance)

--Microchannels -- with fins as small as 0.15mm wide and 0.7mm high, with 0.15mm spacing -- for very precise liquid cooling solutions

Pricing

With Amulaire's customized products, prices vary widely. As an example, Amulaire's cold plates for high-power IGBTs start at $30 per part for volumes of 5,000. In the PC market, Amulaire will enable the highest-performing cold plate solutions for liquid cooling at retail price points of approximately $50, which is about half the price of comparable solutions available today.

About Amulaire

Amulaire Thermal Technology is addressing the most demanding thermal issues facing semiconductor companies, power conversion, computer and telecom manufacturers, and makers of other high-performance semiconductor-based systems. Amulaire offers a unique combination of technical advances, design support and high-volume manufacturing processes that help customers squeeze time and cost from their thermal design process, achieve unprecedented design flexibility and gain greater control over factors such as thermal performance, size, shape and weight in their final products. Amulaire's proprietary manufacturing and assembly processes, including Advanced Molding Technology (AMT), mean that Amulaire can create in metal (including copper), mixed metal and metal/non-metal materials combinations essentially any shape that can be created in plastic. With headquarters in San Diego, California, Amulaire also has a factory, design center and sales office in Taipei, Taiwan.