Efficient micro-liquid cooling of high performance processors for self driving vehicles (ChipCooling)

Important results from the project

The purpose was to demonstrate APR Technologies´ concept idea for cooling of heat-generating electronics using APR´s miniaturized pump and dielectric fluid. The technology is very compact, quiet and lacks moving parts. The goal was 3-5 times increased cooling capacity, which increases the component´s service life about 3 times, and reduces the risk of component failure. The goal was to lower the temperature from 85 ° C to less than 60 ° C. The smaller prototype (SoC) reached a maximum temperature of 55 °C, whereas the larger (ECU) landed at 58 °C. Both systems thus meet the project goal.

Expected long term effects

We have successfully demonstrated that APR´s concept for cooling a vehicle ECU of 30W leads to an operating temperature less than 60 ° C at the component level, and an expected increase in service life of about 3 times (from 3-5 years to 10-15 years). The solution has been verified in the temperature range -41 ° C to +60 ° C. Additional advantages of the solution are that it is compact, completely silent and does not contain moving parts. In the next step, we strive for one or more OEMs to evaluate the solution in their application and for the solution to be designed in one or more products.

Approach and implementation

Two prototypes have been manufactured, the first of which was smaller and only intended to cool the central unit (CPU, GPU, etc.), while other prototypes have a larger cooled area and also include surrounding components (ie the entire ECU). The cooled surface of the ECU corresponds to a on the market common circuit board size, which facilitates market introduction. The smaller prototype was evaluated in the temperature range of 7-60 °C, whereas the larger prototype down to temperatures of -41 °C. TRL 5 has been achieved for the technology in this project.