Westcode Introduces New Water Cooled Heatsink For High Power Semiconductors
IXYS Corp. announced that its wholly owned UK subsidiary, Westcode Semiconductors Ltd., has introduced a new water cooled heatsink (cooler), thus expanding the heat sink offerings, to improve the cooling and efficiency of its power semiconductors. The nickel-plated copper heatsink has a 127mm diameter contact plate, making it suitable for press-pack devices with electrode contacts up to 125mm diameter.
The new heatsink incorporate geometric water channels designed to ensure low values of thermal resistance, even at moderate coolant flows, while retaining a robust structure compatible with the high clamping force required by large area power semiconductors. The geometric design used for the water channels also ensures a highly uniform cooling over the entire surface area. Typical heatsink to input water thermal resistance (for flow rate of 10 L/min), is 4.3 K/kW (two coolers + 1 semiconductor) and 5.6 K/kW (three coolers + 2 semiconductors).
"The high quality surface finish, with a typical flatness of 20micrometers, makes these coolers well suited for use with our high performance Press-pack IGBTs (T1800EB45A & T2400EB45E), but not exclusively," commented Frank Wakeman, Westcode’s Marketing & Technical Support Manager. "Additionally, they are designed to be used with all large area power devices such as Thyristors and Rectifier Diodes with contact electrodes from 90mm to 125mm diameter and clamping pressure up to 13 x106 Pa. Typical applications for the coolers would be in Megawatt power level drives and high power rectifiers, such as in heavy industrial applications, or for electric trains’ trackside substations, as well as all applications in the electricity generation and distribution. The high efficiency cooling provided with these coolers, enables the customers to achieve high power density in their systems with much reduced footprint."
The cooler is available in two versions: XW180GC34A without integral connecting bus bar and XW180GC34B with integral connecting bus bar. Limit dimensions of the cooler are 147 x 142 (262mm for the version with bus bar) x 34mm thick, water connection is 3/8 BSPP x 34mm Deep (minimum thread depth 14mm). Adapted versions with customised bus bar connections can be considered.
