Category Archives: Liquid Cooling

Cooling Hot Electronics with Cold Plates

Posted on May 14, 2025 by | 2 comments

Cold plates have been used for thermal management since the Apollo moon missions in the 1960s. Today, they serve a critical role in cooling high-performance electronics across many industries.

Power electronic devices generate significant heat, and if their chips exceed safe temperature limits, system reliability and longevity are compromised. Effective thermal management is essential, as lowering a chip’s junction temperature by just 10°C can double its operational life.

Cold plates offer highly efficient, localized cooling by transferring heat from hot components—such as power semiconductors—into a liquid coolant flowing through the plate. The heated liquid then moves to a remote heat exchanger, where it cools before recirculating back to the cold plate.

Compared to forced-air cooling, cold plates deliver superior thermal performance. They are typically smaller, quieter, and lighter than fan-based systems, making them an attractive solution in compact or noise-sensitive environments.

Most cold plates consist of thin-walled aluminum or copper blocks with internal channels or tubing for coolant flow. As liquid moves through the plate, it absorbs heat from the attached components and carries it away for external dissipation. Modern designs often use mini-channels instead of traditional tubing. These intricate internal pathways maximize surface contact with the coolant, improving heat transfer and cooling efficiency.

Figure 1 – Cold Plates are Part of a Liquid Cooling Loop that Includes a Pump for Fluid Circulation and a Heat Exchanger to Remove Heat from the Flowing Coolant. [ATS]

More advanced cold plates feature mini-channels in place of tubing. These designs can better match applications and more efficiently transfer heat into the coolant.

Figure 2 – A Cold Plate with Internal Mini-Channels Provides a High Rate of Thermal Transfer to Remove More Component Heat. [ATS]

Tubed Cold Plates Cool Hot Electronics

Embedded tube designs are the simplest cold plates. They feature a stainless steel or copper tube coiled and set into grooves inside a metal base plate. The tubes can be routed in different pathways to optimize thermal transfer performance. The flowing coolant moves heat from the component, away from the cold plate and over to a heat exchanger where it is cooled before being pumped back to the plate.

Figure 3 – A Tubed Cold Plate Can Consist of Copper or Stainless-Steel Tubing Pressed or Embedded in a Metal Plate. [ATS]

These tubed cold plates are cost-effective solutions for low- to moderate-power applications and are ideal for use in automotive, instrumentation, and UPS systems. ATS offers models ranging from 57–914 mm in length and 57–198 mm in width, with push-to-connect fittings for easy installation.

A variation of this design features thermally conductive epoxy completely covering the tubing and flush with the plate’s surface. This not only improves thermal contact but also provides environmental protection by sealing the tube within the plate.

Figure 4 – A Cold Plate’s Tubing Can be Buried and Covered with a Thermally Conductive Epoxy Layer. [1]

Custom Cold Plates Provide Best Cooling Solutions

For more demanding applications—such as cooling BGAs, LEDs, or high-power modules—custom cold plates offer the best performance. These can include embedded tubing or submerged internal fins, which increase surface area and create turbulence to enhance heat transfer.

Figure 5. Custom Liquid Cold Plate with Inlaid Copper Tubing Provides Heat Transfer Away from Hot Electronics [2]

One example uses tightly spaced aluminum pin fins to generate turbulence with minimal pressure drop, achieving high thermal performance while keeping the plate compact. Another design incorporates internal turbulators tailored for IGBT modules, further improving coolant flow and heat dissipation.

ATS designs and manufactures custom cold plates in collaboration with customers or based on in-house thermal analysis. These designs can include complex internal geometries such as microchannels or gyroid lattices, like the 3D-printed cold plate created for race car IGBT cooling—an approach that improves flow guidance while reducing weight.

Figure 6. Close-spaced Pin Fins with Complex Geometry Create Turbulence with Low Flow Rate Values Inside Submerged Fin Cold Plates. [3]
Figure 7. A Custom IGBT-Cooling Cold Plate Features Internal Turbulators to Optimize Coolant Turbulence and Heat Transfer. [4]

ATS constructs cold plates to customer designs and those developed in partnership with our own thermal engineers. ATS coolant-based cold plates can include internal tubing and microchannels in closed loop systems.

Figure 8. Dual-Sided Cold Plates Cool Components on Both of Their Mounting Sides. [ATS]

Dual-sided high-flow cold plates provide equal cooling performance for components mounted on both sides of the plate, increasing efficiency, space savings and economy. The cold plates can be used with coolant flow rates up to 4 gal/min, and provide thermal resistance as low as 0.0021°C/W. [5]

Figure 9 – This 3D-Printed Metal Cold Plate Cools IGBTs on a Race Car. It Features a Gyroid Lattice That Guides Internal Coolant Flow While Reducing the Overall Weight [6]

DIY Cold Plates Optimize Component Cooling

ATS also offers DIY (do it yourself) cold plates with modular dimensions and pre-defined drill zones. Engineers can customize mounting locations to match specific components. Once the ideal configuration is determined, ATS can mass-produce the cold plate to match exact specifications.

Figure 10 – Do It Yourself Cold Plates from ATS Feature Drill Zones for Precision Matching to Heat Sources, and No Drill Zones to Protect Internal Coolant Flow Channels. [ATS]

The Complete Liquid Cooling Loop

Cold plates are just one part of a complete liquid cooling system. As electronics demand more efficient cooling, liquid-based systems are increasingly replacing air-based solutions. A functional loop includes a pump, reservoir, and heat exchanger to remove heat from the circulating fluid.

Figure 11 – A Liquid Cooling Loop Featuring Cold Plates. This is Implemented in Avionics on F-16 Fighting Falcon Jets. [7]

These systems are becoming more cost-effective and safer, making liquid cooling viable for a broader range of applications. Cold plates serve as a critical stage in these loops, offering simplicity, versatility, and high thermal performance.

Plug and Play Liquid Loops

For streamlined implementation, ATS offers the Industrial Cooling Distribution Module™ (iCDM™)—a fully integrated liquid cooling loop in one compact, portable unit. It includes the pump, heat exchanger, reservoir, precision controls, and monitoring displays, eliminating the need to purchase and configure components separately.

Figure 12 – The New Industrial Cooling Distribution Module Contains the Pump, Heat Exchanger, Reservoir and Controls for Managing Coolants in Liquid Cooling Loops. [ATS]

The iCDM connects directly to cold plates or chassis-based cooling systems. It supports models with cooling capacities of 10 kW and 20 kW, each holding up to 2 liters of coolant. The system is compatible with a wide range of wetted materials, allowing flexible deployment across industries. A next-generation iCDM, available soon, is fully automated, with significantly increased cooling capacities up to 1.4MW.

Conclusion

Cold plates can provide essential electronics cooling because of their design versatility and the power of liquid cooling. AI chip cooling cold plates will soon be available for this growing and demanding arena.

ATS engineers are experts in matching thermal solutions to system needs, offering a wide portfolio that includes cold plates, vapor chambers, coolant chillers, and complete liquid loop systems. Whether liquid cooling is the best solution depends on the specific application, and ATS provides detailed analysis to help customers make informed decisions.

References

  1. Wakefield Thermal, http://www.wakefield-vette.com/products/liquid-cooling/liquid-cold-plates/standard-liquid-cold-plates.aspx
  2. Baknor, https://www.baknorthermal.com/liquid-cold-plates-various-channel-options/
  3. COOLTECH, http://www.cooltech.it/products/liquid-cold-plates/
  4. Boyd Corp., https://www.boydcorp.com/thermal/liquid-cooling-systems/liquid-cold-plates.html
  5. ATS, https://www.qats.com/Products/Liquid-Cooling/Dual-Sided-Cold-Plates
  6. nTop, https://www.ntop.com/resources/case-studies/cold-plate-automotive-power-electronics/
  7. ThermOmegaTech, https://www.tot-ad.com/avionics-cooling/

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Posted in Cold Plates, Liquid Cooling

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Thermal Management for AI Chips

Posted on February 20, 2025 by | 2 comments

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) programs is growing very quickly, despite some concerns and precautions. It’s being spurred by powerful new hardware from companies like Nvidia, and by new lower-cost, open source large language model (LLM) software like those from DeepSeek.

Likewise, AI chip sales are soaring, and more powerful and specialized AI chips are being steadily introduced. At this writing, Nvidia, the leading AI chip provider is now the third-most-valuable company in the world, valued at over $2.2 trillion. Nvidia is both developing new AI chips and acquiring smaller AI companies that design processors and develop AI applications. [1]

Figure 1. The Nvidia A100 AI Chip and DeepSeek’s Free to Low-Cost AI Model are Major Reasons for AI’s Fast-Growing Deployment and Use in Nearly All Industries. (Nvidia, DeepSeek) [2]

Other chip companies are also thriving. Micron Technology is reporting record sales, much of them from supplying memory chips to Nvidia. AMD provides chips that rival Nvidia’s flagship AI machine learning chip. And Intel is getting $8.5 billion from a US federal program (CHIPS) to support its goal to build the largest AI chip manufacturing site in the world. [3,4]

Innovative Chips Bring High Heat

AI chip technology, which evolved from the graphics processing units, GPUs, developed for the data needs of video games, may be the most understood part of the AI world. But this evolution is remarkable. The Nvidia A100 AI Chip features 54 billion transistors. By comparison, an AMD Ryzen 7 1700 gaming processor for a contemporary PC has 4.8 million transistors. [5]

By leveraging parallel processing capabilities, AI chips effectively handle large datasets, allowing multiple tasks to be executed simultaneously. These chips interact with special ASICs, FPGAs, TPUs and VPUs to perform machine learning and neural network processing. The AI networks can solve complex algorithms and are teaching computers to process data in a way that is inspired by the human brain.

For example, AI can use inference – combining reasoning and decision-making based on available information – to apply real-world knowledge for facial recognition, gesture identification, natural language interpretation, image searching  and much more. [6]

Figure 2. Intel FPGAs Support Real-Time Deep Learning Inference for Embedded Systems and Data Centers. (Intel/Mirabilis) [7,8]

AI chips demand high power to support increased processing demand. As a result, excessive waste heat can degrade performance or trigger system failure. AI system designers depend on thermal management solutions to manage AI processor temperatures. Cooling resources at both chip-level and facility, e.g. data center scale are needed to keep AI chips functioning at proper temperatures.

Liquid Cooling AI Chips

The heavy lifting in AI processing is done in data centers, which are the focus of most technical developments. Their high concentration of high-power chips presents formidable heat management challenges, especially when the thermal design power of the GPU has increased over the past two decades, rising from 150 watts to more than 700 watts.

Now consider the recently unveiled 1200 watt Nvidia Blackwell B200 tensor core chip—the company’s most powerful single-chip GPU, with 208 billion transistors—which Nvidia says can reduce AI inference operating costs (such as running ChatGPT) and energy. Two of these B200 chips are combined with an Nvidia Grace CPU to complete the newly released, even higher-performing GB200. Its total projected power draw: up to 2,700 watts.

Figure 3. The Nvidia GB200 NVL72 Data Center Computer System Combines 36 GB200s (72 B200 GPUs and 36 Grace CPUs total). (Nvidia) [9]

The GB200 chip is a key part of Nvidia’s new GB200 NVL72, a liquid-cooled data center computer system designed specifically for AI training and inference tasks. Amazon Web Services, Dell Technologies, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, Tesla, and xAI, are expected to adopt the Blackwell platform. [9]

The ever increasing number of transistors attached to data center PCBs translates to higher performance but also more heat than ever before. Liquid cooling systems, like in the Nvidia data center system can significantly reduce energy consumption. This leads to lower operating expenses in the long run. It also produces less noise and, for direct on chip cooling, takes up less space. 

Direct to chip or node cooling involves circulating a coolant directly over heat-generating components, including AI chips. This method significantly increases cooling efficiency by removing heat directly at the source. These systems can use a variety of coolants, including water, dielectric fluids, or refrigerants, depending on the application’s needs and the desired cooling capacity. [9]

Figure 4. Direct-to-Chip Liquid Cooling. Note the Small Heat Sinks to Air-Cool Other Components. (AnD Cable Products) [10]
Figure 5. Data Center Racks Cooled by Lenovo’s Direct to Node Liquid Cooling System. (ServeTheHome) [11]

Immersion cooling takes liquid cooling a step further by submerging the entire server, or parts of it, in a non-conductive liquid. This technique can be highly efficient as it ensures even and thorough heat absorption from all components. Immersion cooling is particularly beneficial for high-performance computing (HPC) and can dramatically reduce the space and energy required for cooling.

Figure 6. Immersion Cooling Submerges All or Parts of a Server in a Non-Conductive Liquid Coolant. (GIGABYTE) [12]

Air Cooling AI Chips

Nvidia’s Jetson chips bring accelerated AI performance to IoT and Edge applications in a power-efficient and compact form factor (smaller than 100mm x 100mm). Less power-consuming (up to 75 watts) than data center AI chips, thermal management is still needed. Jeston components are typically cooled with heat sinks, which can be configured as active (with attached fan) or passive (fanless). 

Figure 7. Passive (Fanless) and Active (Fan-assisted) Heat Sinks Designed to Cool Nvidia Jeston AI Chips in Embedded and Edge Devices.
(Advanced Thermal Solutions, Inc.) [13]
Figure 8. The Edge Ultrastar Transportable Edge Server from Western Digital Features a 70 Watt Nvidia Tesla GPU Cooled by Four Internal 60mm Fans. (Western Digital) [14]

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence is hot in the marketplace. So are AI chips. As complex as they are, simply surpassing a heat threshold can affect their proper function. Their thermal management is essential.

Figure 9. AI Deployment in Industry will Generate Strong Demand for Smart Devices.
One Example is Sensors of All Types. (Fierce Electronics) [15]

The world will experience the impacts of artificial intelligence. Like the Internet and mobile technology, it will become pervasive, far beyond deep fakes and term papers, instead driving development of more capable tools for industry, medicine and more, and for managing our daily live3. With care, this revolution should be benign, and greatly improve our lives and our world.
 
References
1. Motley Fool, https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/03/21/nvidia-just-bought-5-ai-stocks-2-stand-out-most/
2. OPB, https://www.opb.org/article/2025/02/05/international-regulators-probe-how-deepseek-is-using-data-is-the-app-safe-to-use/
3. Yahoo Finance, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amd-dethrone-nvidia-artificial-intelligence-112400772.html
4. Quartz, https://qz.com/intel-ai-chip-factory-world-chips-act-funds-1851358125
5. Nvidia, https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/a100/
6. OurCrowd, https://www.ourcrowd.com/learn/what-is-an-ai-chip
7. Intel, https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/software/programmable/fpga-ai-suite/overview.html
8. Mirabilis Design, https://www.mirabilisdesign.com/intel-fpga-neural-processor-ai/
9. Ars Technica, https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/03/nvidia-unveils-blackwell-b200-the-worlds-most-powerful-chip-designed-for-ai 
10. AnD Cable Products, https://andcable.com/data-center-trends/data-center-liquid-cooling/
11. ServeTheHome, https://www.servethehome.com/lenovo-sd650-v2-and-sd650-n-v2-liquid-cooling-intel-xeon-nvidia-a100-neptune/
12. GIGABYTE, https://www.gigabyte.com/Solutions/gigabyte-single-phase
13. Advanced Thermal Solutions, Inc., https://www.qats.com/eShop.aspx?q=Device%20Specific%20-%20NVIDIA
14. Western Digital, https://www.westerndigital.com/en-ap/products/data-center-platforms/ultrastar-transporter?sku=1ES2562
15. Fierce Electronics, https://www.fierceelectronics.com/components/sensors-artificial-intelligence-and-concepts-you-may-want-to-know-i

2 Comments

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Liquid Cooling, thermal management

Tagged , , ,

Manufacturing services for cold plates for electronics cooling

Posted on September 20, 2022 by | 1 comment

Many companies we work with prefer to design their own cold plates and have another company do the DFMA review and the manufacturing. ATS’ extensive capability for manufacturing cold plates is demonstrated in the wide variety of tubed cold plates it produces to meet each customer’s specific requirements. Copper, stainless steel, aluminum, 4 or 48 passes, ATS has the manufacturing capability to make nearly any tubed cold plate. Different examples of these custom cold plates, made in the USA, are described on the ATS website at the link: https://www.qats.com/Products/Liquid-Cooling/Custom-Cold-Plates

cold plate manufacturing for OEM and ODM applications. Both tubed and finned cold plates in copper, stainless steel and other materials

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Posted in Cold Plates, Liquid Cooling, Manufacturing

Understanding coolants and components’ materials of construction and their interaction.

Posted on September 12, 2022 by | 4 comments

CPC has a very helpful white paper and funny but very useful video on the topic of understanding coolants and components’ materials of construction and their interaction. This is one of those niche topic areas that some may not consider, but, is key to avoiding performance and reliability issues in liquid cooling systems.  These are no cost, no email registration required.

==> Click here for the technical guide: https://lnkd.in/e73BvyFM

==> Click here for the video: https://lnkd.in/eWFet_BY


4 Comments

Posted in Liquid Cooling

Nanoparticles to Enhance the Thermal Management of Electronics

Posted on February 22, 2022 by | 2 comments

The addition of nanoparticles to a coolant are an alternative approach that can be considered to improve the performance of a liquid cooled system or perhaps to further reduce the size of such a system. But nanoparticles are not necessarily well known by engineers engaged in thermal management. This list of material may help.

The addition of nanoparticles to a coolant are an alternative approach that can be considered to improve the performance of a liquid cooled system or perhaps to further reduce the size of such a system. But nanoparticles are not necessarily well known by engineers engaged in thermal management. This list of material may help.

First, a new paper by Moita, Moreira and Pereira, does an excellent job of reviewing nanofluids for the next generation of thermal management. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge in this space by looking at typical nanoparticle/base fluid mixtures used and combined in technical and functional solutions. It covers the science of nanofluids and their practical application. You can download this open-access paper from the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, at this link (download is a PDF): Nanofluids for the Next Generation Thermal Management of Electronics: A Review

Second, ATS was fortunate enough to have had on our research staff, Dr. Reza Azizian. He and others authored a white paper titled “Nanofluids in Electronics Cooling Applications”. This piece discusses the theory and use of nanofluids for thermal management. We’ve posted that paper on the ATS blog here: Nanofluids in Electronics Cooling Applications.

We hope you find these resources helpful. Like always, if you have trouble accessing them, drop us a comment and we’ll get you a copy.

Nanoparticles Shapes & Forms Image used by permission from the artist normaals

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Posted in Liquid Cooling, Nano-technology, Thermal Design