Thermal Trends and Improvements for Rugged COTS Cards

Thermal management of rugged COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) cards destined for defense applications has always been a challenge due to the high operating temperatures and other harsh environmental requirements. Add to this the demands for ever increasing functional density, achieved by using the latest processors and dense packaging, and the abilities of the incumbent cooling approaches (air and conduction) are pushed to the brink. Fortunately, the increasing challenges continue to be met with air and conduction cooling innovations. For power dissipations or densities beyond these limits, liquid flow-through (LFT) module designs offer a large step increase in cooling capability with plenty of headroom for the foreseeable future.