Direct Phase-Change Cooling of Vapor Chamber Integrated With IGBT Power Electronic Module for Automotive Application

In electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles, insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) power module trends to dissipate higher heat flux due to increased power rating and reduced package size. An inefficient cooling method will result in stringent thermal reliability problems. Therefore, there is a strong need for innovative and efficient cooling technologies in order to tackle these issues. In this article, a localized direct phase-change cooling strategy is applied and integrated with direct bonded copper in IGBT power module. Vapor chamber with light weight, high thermal conductivity, and even temperature uniformity replaces original copper baseplate. Layers of thermal grease and original cooling plate are removed, leading to a further reduction in thermal resistance. In order to evaluate the new module, a thermal model and an experiment were built to analyze temperature distribution in layers, junction temperature, temperature uniformity, and thermal resistance. Results indicate the integrated thermal management system outperforms traditional cooling solutions on the cooling capacity. Improvements on junction temperature, temperature uniformity, and total thermal resistance are 34.6%, 76.6%, and 41.6%, respectively. The results illustrate the potential of phase-change cooling by vapor chamber. It provides a new perspective in the compact and efficient design of power electric modules.