Porous semiconductor-based evaporator having porous and non-porous regions, the porous regions having through-holes
First Claim
1. A porous structure based evaporator, the evaporator comprising:
- a first material layer, the first material layer having porous regions at a first set of predetermined areas and non-porous regions at a second set of predetermined areas, the porous regions comprising a plurality of through-holes between a first surface of the first material layer and a second surface of the first material layer; and
a cap structure coupled to the first material layer to form an enclosure over the first surface of the first material layer, the enclosure formed from contact of peripheral regions of the cap structure with the first material layer at a first non-porous region of the second set of predetermined areas,wherein, the cap is formed to contact the first surface of the first material layer at a second non-porous region of the second set of predetermined areas.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention is a MEMS-based two-phase LHP (loop heat pipe) and CPL (capillary pumped loop) using semiconductor grade silicon and microlithographic/anisotrophic etching techniques to achieve a planar configuration. The principal working material is silicon (and compatible borosilicate glass where necessary), particularly compatible with the cooling needs for electronic and computer chips and package cooling. The microloop heat pipes (μLHP™) utilize cutting edge microfabrication techniques. The device has no pump or moving parts, and is capable of moving heat at high power densities, using revolutionary coherent porous silicon (CPS) wicks. The CPS wicks minimize packaging thermal mismatch stress and improves strength-to-weight ratio. Also burst-through pressures can be controlled as the diameter of the coherent pores can be controlled on a sub-micron scale. The two phase planar operation provides extremely low specific thermal resistance (20-60 W/cm2). The operation is dependent upon a unique micropatterened CPS wick which contains up to millions per square centimeter of stacked uniform micro-through-capillaries in semiconductor-grade silicon, which serve as the capillary “engine,” as opposed to the stochastic distribution of pores in the typical heat pipe wick. As with all heat pipes, cooling occurs by virtue of the extraction of heat by the latent heat of phase change of the operating fluid into vapor.
In the cooling of a laptop computer processor the device could be attached to the processor during laptop assembly. Consistent with efforts to miniaturize electronics components, the current invention can be directly integrated with a unpackaged chip. For applications requiring larger cooling surface areas, the planar evaporators can be spread out in a matrix and integrally connected through properly sized manifold systems.
63 Citations
25 Claims
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1. A porous structure based evaporator, the evaporator comprising:
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a first material layer, the first material layer having porous regions at a first set of predetermined areas and non-porous regions at a second set of predetermined areas, the porous regions comprising a plurality of through-holes between a first surface of the first material layer and a second surface of the first material layer; and a cap structure coupled to the first material layer to form an enclosure over the first surface of the first material layer, the enclosure formed from contact of peripheral regions of the cap structure with the first material layer at a first non-porous region of the second set of predetermined areas, wherein, the cap is formed to contact the first surface of the first material layer at a second non-porous region of the second set of predetermined areas. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A porous semiconductor structure based evaporator, the evaporator comprising:
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a first layer of semiconductor-based material, the first layer having porous regions at a first set of predetermined areas and non-porous regions at a second set of predetermined areas, the porous regions comprising a plurality of through-holes between a first surface of the first layer and a second surface of the first layer; and a cap structure coupled td the first layer to form an enclosure over the first surface of the first layer, the enclosure formed from contact of peripheral regions of the cap structure with the first layer at a first non-porous region of the second set of predetermined areas, wherein the cap structure is formed to contact the first surface of the first layer at a second non-porous region of the second set of predetermined areas. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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Specification