With the development in technology and the trend towards miniaturization, thermal management of electronic devices within small packages and with concentrated heat sources has really become a challenge.

Two phase devices such as heat pipes have been considered as a possible solution however the degree to which a heat pipe could be flattened used to be governed by the wick structure and maintaining a vapour space for the evaporated working fluid to move in.

These constraints effectively made the heat pipe too large to be used in these hand held devices.

Recent developments in fibre wick structures however, enable Columbia-Staver to offer heat pipes with a thickness as small as 0.4mm. The body of these ultra-thin heat pipes is made of copper with pure deionised water as the working fluid. The Ultra-thin heat pipes are easily able to transfer heat fluxes in the range of 1’6 W/cm2 often required mobile-handheld chipsets.

Ultra-thin heat pipes can come in a variety of lengths, widths and thicknesses