Optimized Topology Design of Three-Dimensional Microchannel Heat Sink for Non-uniform Heat Flux Chip Cooling

The rapid development of electronic technology has led to continuously increasing chip integration density and power consumption, resulting in a sharp rise in chip heat flux. Excessively high chip temperatures can easily degrade the performance and lifespan of electronic devices. Currently, the chip thermal management faces the following challenges: (1) High chip heat flux makes traditional cooling methods inadequate; (2) Limited space for heat sink installation requires more compact structures; (3) Most existing chip heat sink designs target uniform heat flux, whereas modern chips with diverse functions exhibit varying power densities across different functional modules, rendering uniform-heat-source designs unsuitable for such thermal variations. To address these issues, this paper proposes using a topology optimization method to optimize the flow channel design specifically for chips with non-uniform heat flux, aiming to achieve microchannel heat sinks with high cooling efficiency. It also investigates and compares the influence of different inlet configurations on the topology optimization results. The research results indicate that the topology heat sink structure with three inlets exhibits lower thermal resistance compared to other inlet configurations and achieves a 58.4% reduction in thermal resistance, compared to a traditional straight microchannel heat sink.