Advanced Thermal Solutions, Inc. (ATS) recently attended APEC 2018 in San Antonio to showcase the company’s thermal solutions for power electronics, meet with industry representatives, and learn the latest trends in the power industry.
ATS has been a member of the PSMA (Power Sources Manufacturers Association), which is the sponsoring organization for APEC, for the past three years because ATS has a strong connection to the power industry and extensive expertise in keeping the industry cool.
Product Engineering Manager is interviewed about ATS cold plates by Alix Paultre, the Power Editor at Aspencore, in the ATS booth at APEC 2018 in San Antonio. (Advanced Thermal Solutions, Inc.)
Vice-President of Sales and Business Development Steve Nolan and Product Engineering Manager Greg Wong manned the ATS booth during the show and took visits from sales representatives, distributors, and engineers from across the industry, some were familiar faces and some were learning about ATS expertise in thermal management of power electronics for the first time.
The highlighted products were ATS liquid cold plates, which boast 30% better thermal performance than comparable products on the market and are easily customizable to meet a variety of applications, and the line of ATS high-performance round and flat heat pipes, which is expanding by the end of 2018 to give ATS the broadest offering of off-the-shelf heat pipes on the market.
“When people start having thermal issues, it’s because they’re dissipating a lot of power and then you start to need things like heat pipes and liquid cold plates,” said Wong. “In most of these applications, people are talking about custom designs, which is where we have a lot of strength working with the customer and designing these custom applications.”
ATS cold plates were also featured in the Texas Instruments (TI) booth as part of a “98.5% efficiency, 6.6-kW Totem-Pole PFC Reference Design for HEV/EV Onboard Charger.” The base of the design was silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs with a C2000 microcontroller with SiC-isolated gate drivers, according to information presented by TI.
Underneath the prototype that was on display at the TI booth was a custom ATS cold plate to meet the charger’s thermal requirements.
ATS cold plates were on display at the TI booth, as a thermal solution for a new TI design. (Advanced Thermal Solutions, Inc.)
“It’s a great example of how we can customize our cold plates to meet a particular application,” Wong added. “A lot of people were taking pictures of that piece at the TI booth and a lot of people were talking with TI about it. The booth was mobbed every time I went over there.”
ATS participation in the TI booth at APEC 2018 is a continuation of the strong working relationship between the two companies. ATS has also been a key reference design supplier of heat sink solutions for TI’s audio evaluation module.
Wong and Nolan also learned a lot about the future of power electronics, including the prevalence of SiC and gallium nitride (GaN) components in the industry and the increasing popularity of liquid cooling, to keep ATS current on industry trends and ensure that the innovative thermal solutions that ATS provides can meet ever-rising power demands.
While there is a lot that is new in the industry, IGBT designs continue to be popular and the standard IGBT footprint matches perfectly with ATS off-the-shelf cold plates to make an easy fit for engineers designing liquid cooling solutions.
“If people are still making devices in that IGBT footprint then it will bolt directly to the cold plate, which is good news because that package is very popular, so it’s good to have those standard products,” Wong explained.
Watch the video below as Greg Wong of ATS was interviewed by Alix Paultre of Power Electronics News at APEC 2018 about ATS heat pipes and cold plates.
ATS has the expertise, products, and resources to provide off-the-shelf and customized thermal solutions for the power electronics industry. Learn more about the full line of products at https://www.qats.com or contact ATS at ats-hq@qats.com.
