Product Portfolio
AMS Technologies’ wide range of high-performance heat sink profiles with optimized geometries provides outstanding heat transfer performance. Market leaders in power conversion rely on these profiles for cooling demanding applications like high power semiconductor modules, power converters, renewable energies, traction, energy transmission and large drives.
Extruded aluminum heat sink profiles are available from AMS Technologies with a large number of different standard profile shapes. By joining two or more extruded standard profiles by friction stir welding, robust, stable finned heat sinks with widths of up to 1000 mm can be produced.
Our portfolio also provides devices allowing heat sources to be mounted on both heat sink bases while forced air from a fan or blower flows through the hollow heat sink with internal fins. Our clip system heat sinks are designed for quick and easy mount with a clamp clip to power semiconductors in TO-220 or TO-247 packages on a PCB, offering technical advantages especially for the assembly process.
Our heat sinks with brazed fins or bonded fins allow maximum dimensional flexibility for manufacturing non-standard heat sink solutions in prototype and series production. Without the limitations of extruded profiles, even different materials such as copper and aluminum can be combined in one heat sink, and there is no need for new extrusion dies or special extrusion tools.
Find the ideal combination of large surface area, unobstructed heat conduction from heat source to fin surface and low air resistance or pressure drop for your heat dissipation project. Our thermal management experts are pleased to work out a customized heatsink solution that exactly fits your project’s requirements – either based on our large portfolio of standard heatsink profiles, or by defining a special profile heat sink, highly configurable to meet your custom specifications. Contact us now or send us your request for a customized solution.
Related Products
Using our broad range of fans for forced air cooling dramatically improves the heat sink’s performance. Depending on the required airflow and the dimensions of the heat sink, users can choose from our wide range of axial fans, blowers and impellers both for AC and DC operation. And our filter fans are effective and low-cost solutions for removing dissipated heat out of cabinets and enclosures.
Heat sinks are critical components in thermoelectric solutions – AMS Technologies carries an extraordinary portfolio of thermoelectric components like thermoelectric (Peltier) modules or TEC temperature controllers. We have many years of experience in the development and design of customized TEC-based solutions that can be specified according to the requirements of your application – contact us to arrange an appointment.
For managing higher heat loads, AMS Technologies carries a broad portfolio of liquid cooling components, including liquid-cooled cold plates and fin heat exchangers for reliably cooling power electronics, lasers or batteries.
Definition
A heat sink improves the heat dissipation from an electronic device to the colder environment. This way, the overall thermal resistance of an electronic system can be reduced – and thus the system and component temperature can be lowered. Alternatively, a heat sink allows more power to be dissipated at a specified maximum operating temperature.
Lightness, good thermal conductivity and malleability are the main properties making aluminum the most suitable material for heat dissipation devices. Aluminum heat sinks are available with a large number of different profile shapes – with modifying the profile shape, the surface that comes into contact with the air is also changed, and thus the ability to dissipate heat. Different surface geometries also allow to match pressure head and flow rate of fans and blowers.
How to Select a Heat Sink
The performance of a heat sink is defined by its thermal resistance (in K/W) as stated in the supplier's data sheet, which considers the heat transfer from the heat sink to the environment by convection and radiation. This thermal resistance depends on several factors: material (thermal conductivity), shape and size, colour and surface finish (radiation efficiency and contact resistance), installation position (natural or forced convection) and convective power or air flow speed. The lower the thermal resistance, the higher the heat sink performance.
Based on the ambient temperature, the power dissipated by the electronic component, the thermal resistance between its junction and case and the maximum operating temperature, the maximum permissible thermal resistance of the heat sink can be calculated as follows:
Rth = Tj-Ta/Pd - Rth_jc - Rth_ch
where Rth_jc is the thermal resistance between junction and case of the electronic component and Rth_ch is the thermal resistance between case and heat sink, depending on the thermal resistance of the heat-conducting material (usually thermal silicon grease) applied to achieve a contact surface between the housing and the heat sink which is as homogeneous as possible. Based on the resulting value, select a heat sink with a thermal resistance value that is at least equal to or less than the calculated value.
Thermal Resistance Depends on Heat Sink Length
Since thermal resistance decreases with increasing heat sink length according to a nonlinear law, suppliers often give this value for a given profile length, in natural convection and 70 K temperature difference between heat sink and environment at +25°C ambient temperature. In addition, a value for forced convection with an air flow velocity of 3 m/s and 70 K temperature difference to the environment at +25°C ambient temperature is often given as well as a diagram to calculate the multiplication factor for the given thermal resistance for different air flow velocities.
This data comes from thermal simulations and tests carried out by suppliers in their laboratories under precisely defined conditions regarding the number, size and placement of the heat sources, the heat conducting material used, the positioning of the temperature sensors, etc. The data is then used to calculate the multiplication factor for the given thermal resistance for different air velocities. Thus, the data can be considered reliable. However, since the working conditions of the heat sinks may differ from those in the laboratory for each custom application, it is recommended to perform thermal tests under application conditions.
Alternative Terms: Heat Dissipator; Heat Dissipation Device; Heat Transfer Device; Heat Absorber; Heat Radiator
