Thermal Design - Seco COM-Express CCOMe-965 User Manual

4.1 Thermal Design

A parameter that has to be kept in very high consideration is the thermal design of the system.
Highly integrated modules, like COM Express modules, offer to the user very good performances in minimal spaces, therefore allowing the systems' minimisation.
On the counterpart, the miniaturising 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.
COM Express specifications take into account the use of a heatspreader, which will act only as thermal coupling device between the COM Express module 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
optimise 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.
Conversely, heatsinks in some situation can represent a cooling solution. Until the modules are used on a development Carrier board, on free air, just for software
development and system tuning, then a finned heatsink with fan could be sufficient for modules' cooling. Anyhow, please remember that all depends also on the
workload of the processor. Heavy computational tasks will generate much heat.
Indeed, when using CCOMe-965 carrier board with any COM Express module, it is necessary to consider carefully the global heat generated by the system, and
the scenario of utilisation.
Therefore, it is always necessary that the customer study and develop accurately the cooling solution for his system, by evaluating processor's workload, utilisation
scenarios, the enclosures of the system, the air flow and so on. This is particularly needed for industrial grade modules.
SECO can provide COM Express modules' specific heatspreaders and heatsinks (active and passive), but please remember that their use must be evaluated
accurately inside the final system (electronics + mechanics), and that they should be used only as a part of a more comprehensive ad-hoc cooling solutions, which
also keeps the surface temperature of all carrier board's components in the temperature range specified for the specific carrier board configuration (industrial or
commercial grade).
CCOMe-965
CCOMe-965 - Rev. First Edition: 1.0 - Last Edition: 3.0 - Author: S.B. - Reviewed by G.G. Copyright © 2016 SECO S.r.l.
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