Thermal Design - Seco SBC Series User Manual

5.1 Thermal Design

A parameter that has to be kept in very high consideration is the thermal design of the system.
Highly integrated modules, like SBC-A80-eNUC board, offer to the user very good performances in minimal spaces, therefore allowing the system's minimization.
On the counterpart, the miniaturizing of IC's and the rise of operative frequencies of processors lead to the generation of a big amount of heat, that must be
dissipated to prevent system hang-off or faults.
The board can be used along with specific heatspreaders, but please remember that they will act only as thermal coupling device between the board itself and an
external dissipating surface/cooler. The heatspreader also needs to be thermally coupled to all the heat generating surfaces using a thermal gap pad, which will
optimize the heat exchange between the module and the heatspreader.
The heatspreader is not intended to be a cooling system by itself, but only as means for transferring heat to another surface/cooler, like heatsinks, fans, heat pipes
and so on.
When using SBC-A80-eNUC boards, it is necessary to consider carefully the heat generated by the module in the assembled final system, and the scenario of
utilization.
Until the board is used on a laboratory shelf, on free air, just for software development and system tuning, then a heatsink with integrated fan could be sufficient for
board's cooling. Anyhow, please remember that all depends also on the workload of the processor. Heavy computational tasks will generate much heat with all
SoCs versions.
Therefore, it is always necessary that the customer studies and develops accurately the cooling solution for his system, by evaluating processor's workload,
utilization scenarios, the enclosures of the system, the air flow and so on.
SECO can provide SBC-A80-eNUC specific heatspreaders, passive heatsinks and heatsinks with fan, but please remember that their use must be evaluated
accurately inside the final system, and that they should be used only as a part of a more comprehensive ad-hoc cooling solutions.
The customer shall always ensure that the heatspreader/heatsink surface temperature remains in the range 0 ÷ 60 °C.
Ordering Code Description
SA80-DISS-1 SBC-A80-eNUC Heatspreader Kit
SBC-A80-eNUC
SBC-A80-eNUC User Manual - Rev. First Edition: 1.0 - Last Edition: 1.2 - Author: S.B. - Reviewed by G.G Copyright © 2017 SECO S.r.l.
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