Column: Packaging designers are taking the heat

By Richard Comerford, Senior Technical Editor

One thing that’s becoming a particular focus for packaging designers and their customers today is dealing with heat.
 
At DesignCon last month, Molex was demonstrating some new high-speed, QSFP-type interconnects. In many designs, when you have high-speed signals, you have to deal with dissipating a lot of heat; the electronics are working hard to process and move the high-speed signal’s data.
 
What was unusual about these connectors was that their external packaging had grooved channels on top. The channels allowed air to flow over the connector and into a receptacle, which had openings that let the air flow into any equipment enclosure into which the receptacle was placed. This package design not only kept the connectors cooler, but also allowed air to flow more freely throughout the enclosure.

Of course, when we talk of high-speed signals, we naturally think of data centers and in-plant network configurations. These are the types of applications that typically rely on tall rack enclosures to hold network servers and other systems that are critical to a business operation. Obviously, dealing with heat is critical here, because too much heat eventually leads to equipment failure, and businesses don’t want these mission-critical systems to fail. Exacerbating the problem in some cases is the fact that the ambient temperatures fluctuate, and so do cooling requirements.

Rittal's new Blue e+ enclosure cooling system employs a new approach to thermal control that provides many significant benefits.    

For these applications, special cooling systems are mandatory. In his article, “Techniques for better enclosure cooling,” Eric Corzine, Rittal’s product manager for climate control, describes a new type of cooling system that makes use of both active and passive cooling techniques to provide a better quality of heat management. Not only is heat control more consistent with this new approach, but it is also less power hungry, longer lived, and easier to use. 

Clearly, packaging designers can take the heat.

By the way, if you’d like to see Rittal’s latest enclosure cooling systems, and attend Germany’s renowned Hannover Fair – the largest industrial trade show and fair in the world – to boot, here’s your chance. Rittal, the world’s largest enclosure manufacturer and a leader in thermal management of electrical, electronic and IT equipment, is offering you the chance to win an all-expense-paid trip to Hannover Fair 2016 with them this coming April. To read more about it and enter the contest, CLICK HERE.