THERMAL EVALUATION OF A POWERPC-620 MICROPROCESSOR IN A MULTIPROCESSOR COMPUTER

Passive heat sinks for cooling the PowerPC 620 microprocessor in a mul tiprocessor computer system were analyzed, A computational fluid dynam ics simulation was used to determine the airflow and air temperatures at the system and board levels, A heat sink was chosen based on estima ted thermal requirements and then characterized experimentally under s imilar how and geometry conditions found in the system, Data from the simulation and experiments was then combined to calculate junction tem perature. Results show the microprocessor junction temperature can be maintained below 85 degrees C for a 25 W heat dissipation and 101 degr ees C for a 30 W heat dissipation.