Innovative heat sink designs cool "hot" FPGAs

In recent years, makers of thermal management products have introduced a wide array of new heat sinks that provide more cooling in a given volume. This article will help engineers looking for more-powerful heat sinks by describing recent innovations in heat sink design and analyzing their impact on heat sink performance. This discussion will also provide engineers with tools for analyzing new heat sink designs.

Innovations in heat sink design follow three basic trends. There are designs with more-aerodynamic fin shapes, innovative fin structures and more-conductive heat sink materials such as copper. To illustrate these trends and their significance, we will present two examples of advanced heat sink designs used to cool the type of cutting-edge FPGAs found in typical telecom and datacom applications.

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