Thci-mal Design of a Ultra-slim Notebook Computer

Takashi Koboyashi . Tetsuro Ogushi:” . Noriaki Suiiii . Masao FLi.jii

Design Systems Engineering Center .*Ad\:aiiced Technology R b D Center.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
2-2-1. Minato-Mirai Nislii-Ku. Yokoliania 220-5 120 JAPAN
PHONE: +S 1-45-224-269 1 . FAX: ‘SI -45-724-277 1
E-mail: koba~ds.lnit.iiielco.co:ip

Abstract --- system. These subjects make the thermal design diflicult for
We have developed t\i o innovative thermal solutions for equipment designers. and need new thermal solutions with-
ultra-slim Notebook Personal Computer(PC) where only out compromising the enclosure’s size . weight and total
natural convection cooling can be used for heat rejection. cost .etc.
The first solution is cooling systeni for CPU by using tlie In our ultra-slim notebook PC -‘MITSUBISHI Pedion” as
bottom chassis(h4g die-cast) as a heat spreader combining sliown in Fig.2, we apply the two improved cooling methods
with AI heat transfer plate. The size and geometry of \vhich to minimize the space and tlie \+eight of cooling system.
were optimized by tliernial analysis using Finite Volume
Method before making the prototype. And as the second
solution. a new coating which can reduce touching warmth
of Mg(magnesium alloy) die-cast enclosure have developed
and already been reached the stage of practical use.
This paper describes the outline of these thermal design
technology used for MITSUBISHI ultra-slim notebook PC
“Pedion”. As of September 1997, “Pedion” is the world’s
thinnest at I S p i i thick among A4-size notebook computers M
-
for Microsoft- Windows“.

1 .INTRODUCTION

The mobile computer has been towards incorporating high

performance microprocessors. As can be seen in Fig.1, the
notebook has become thinner over the years, while the num-
ber of devices inside the notebook has remained quite the
same as shown in Table].
While the portable computer is expected to operate under
natural convection cooling with sealed enclosure. the per- Fig.?. MlTSUBlSHl mobile coni]~uter“Pedion”
foriiiance enliaiiceinent and tlie size reduction of tlie enclo-
sure causes tlie elevation of power density. 111addition. tem-
perature constraint is not only placed 011 the microproces-
sors but also on various pai-ts (chassis, Keyboards etc.) from
a view point of end user discomfort . Design engineers are
therefore making efforts in order to obtain innovative solu-
tions for thermal management of high power devices in the

50
40
-
c
c

;30
A
.J

3
1
20 I’sd ion“
.- - “

( 18lnm)
IO 2. lMPROVED COOLING METHiODS TO “Pedion”

0 ‘ I I I I I Mobile computers are usually required to be housed in

year sealed chassis \vithout fans from the viewpoint 01’ reliability
1993 1994 I995 I996 1997 -
and portabilib. In the passive cooling system. natural air
Figl. Trend of the inobile PC in thickness convection. conduction and radiation are the nia.jor heat

0-7803-4475-8/98/$10.0001998 IEEE 15 1998 Intersociety Conlference on Thermal Phenoinena

transfer mechanisms to dissipate the energy fiom the source
to the outside ambient air. Therefore, design and optimiza-
tion of the total heat flow path (series of conduction and
convection /radiation paths) is very important. Thermal
design of this type computers has been performed by using
the heat spreading effect of a large size aluminum plate or a
heat pipe inside of the plastic enclosure. However, in devel-
opment of this ultra-slim notebook PC “Pedion ”, we had no
space to equip the cooling devices, such as a large size alu-
minum plate, a heat pipe and a fan in the chassis to mini-
mize the cooling structure.
So we investigated the new thermal solution by using a
simulation approach in order to optimize accurately the
cooling design at the early design stage. Since this siniula- Fig.3.Finite volume mesh model for display
tion is useful to obtain the nature of the heat flow and tem-
perature distributions of the system in visible, it is easy to
investigate the effect of changing the cooling parameter.
At first, we describe the modeling method of thermal
analysis which can shorten the time of development. In the
next section, we introduce the cooling structure as a result of
simulation which is finally applied to the product .

Compact Model for Analysis

The thermal analysis was performed in IWO parts (the main

body side and the display panel side). Figure3 shows the
simulation model of the display panel side, and Figure4
shows the simulation model of the main body side. AI1 mod-
els were built up fiom solid elements to represent each ma-
terial property. All of the small component on the circuit
board (capacitors, resistors, etc.) were omitted and the total
power of the small component was added to the printed
wired board. Pins of the package were treated as cuboidal
elements , set to have a conductivity equivalent to that of
pins. Contact thermal resistance was taken into considera-
tion only about silicon rubbers installed by upper and lower
sides of the CPU. Because high heat flux exists and contact
thermal resistance can’t be neglected only around CPU. The
values were set to silicon rubbers as equivalent heat transfer
coefficient based on experimental data. Heat dissipation of
each part was given by measurement or assumed fiom the
specification of the components.
In this analysis ,we solved the energy equation( 1) by Finite
Volume Method without the convection term in steady state.
This means we assumed that heat transfer could take place
only by conduction and the model did not take into account
the air flow in the chassis[l][2]. However, this approxima-
tion is valid because increasing density of layout of boards
and devices inside the enclosure leaves very little space and
offers a very large resistance to air movement.
T: temperature [K]
/z : thermal conductivity [W/m K]
S: heat source [W]
Boundary conditions of the extemal walls of enclosure
were given by equations(2) and (3) which represented the
Fig.4. Finite volume mesh model for main body
typical heat transfer coefficient for natural convective Cool-
ing and radiation with a remote source at the ambient tem-
perature[3][4]. By using these equations, it became unnec-
essary to treat flow domain around the enclosure.
Horizontal wall surface :
T,: * . . ( 2 )
h H z 1 . 3 1 ( A T / L ) 0.25+4 E U
Vertical wall surface :
h =1.36 ( A T / L ) 0.25+4 E U T,,; - * . ( 3 )
h: heat transfer coefficient [W/(m’ K)]
E : emissivity
U : Stefan-Boltzniann constant 5.67 X IO-’ [W/(m2K‘)]
L: Characteristic length [m]
Where A T is temperature difference between the chassis
wall and ambient. And T,,, is the average temperature of the
chassis wall and ambient. The emissivity of the chassis sur-
face for equations (2) and (3) was set at 0.92 based on
measurement .
On the other hand, we didn’t treat the intemal radia-
tion ,because the temperature difference of parts in the cabi-
net was small. When solving the matrix of the energy equa-
tion, Incomplete LU decomposition CG Squared method
was used so that calculation might be stabilized.
These modeling methods were very effective to reduce the
computational load and analysis time. Although the total
number of mesh of the main body was 150,195 (95x 51 x 3 1)
and for the display panel model it was 139,920 (106x 24x
5 9 , the calculation time per a model was within 10 minutes
by using a Engineering Work Station.

16 1998 InterSociety Confmnce on Thermal Phenomena

 tion molding. Mg die-cast also has the merit which is excel-
Siinirlatioii Based Thernial Desigil lent in recycling. And we concluded that it would be possi-
ble not to use the heat pipe and fan .since the chassis with
Figure5 shows the computational results of thermal distri- Mg die-casting would result in a significani improvement in
bution. These analysis models played an important role in the thennal perfonnance.
thermal design iterations .because the main advantage of At last stage of design, optimization of‘ the geometricai
using simulations to predict theiiiial performance is to parameter such as the thickness or size of the heat spreaders
evaluate various design parameters and optiniize a cooling was carried out by using the simulation. For example, the
structure. As a result of the simulation over 50 cases during effect of thickness of the A1 heat spreader for CPU was
the design process, we could obtain the most effective cool- analyzed. Figure8 shows a computational result of the tem-
ing system to minimize the space for cooling without a large perature rise of CPU for various thicknesses of the AI heat
size aluminum plate, a heat pipe and a fan which required spreader. In this analysis, the thickness of the A1 heat
the large space to install them. Figure6 shows an exploded spreader was varied holding all other pardmeters constant.
diagram of the “Pedion” with cooling system. From Fig.8, on this condition. the effectiveness of thickness
In the early design stage. simulation model was used to was not very large due to the limited heat spreading area.
deteiiiiine the optiniuni location of the key devices for ther- Therefore, the thickness of the AI heat spreader was decided
mal performance. to be 0.3mm, and the weight was minimized.
And then, the effect of modifying the bottom chassis to As a result of these siniulation based design process, we
metal die-cast was analyzed and simulation based decision could obtain the optimum cooling system before making the
of the necessity for cooling device(heat pipe , fan.... ) was prototype. The concept of the cooling structure results from
investigated. In this analysis, the thermal conductivity of the thermal analysis was summarized below.
bottom chassis was varied between 0.3WImk and 170W/nX
holding all other parameters constant, and the influence of
thermal conductivity of the bottom chassis on the thermal
performance was analyzed. Figure7 shows a plot of the
temperature rise of CPU for various thermal conductivity of
the bottom chassis. It is seen that modifying the bottom
chassis to metal die-cast is very effective in lowering the
temperature of CPU. And as a result, the bottom chassis was
made of Mg die-cast thickness of which is in a range from
. 0 . 9 m to 1.2“ instead of conventional fiber reinforced
// / LCDpanel 7Q
ABS(Acrylonitri1e-Butadiene Styrene copolymer). As can
be seen in Table.2, Mg die-cast is a promising material for
mobile computer chassis, because the chassis can be made
thinly and lightly in spite of improving the characteristic of
shock resistance and thermal performance. Mg die-cast also
has the advantage in making the chassis thinner at the injec-
A\ Keyboard

Fig.6. Exploded diagram of the “Pedion”

Fig.5. Computational results of thermal distribution

17 1998 InrerSociety Conference on Thermal Phenomena

 Top chassis(Al3S) Silicon rubber
f3
60 -,,
Thermal vias //
3 55 \
\
/
/ /
/
"0
a
50 Heat s p r e a d e r ( A l k h'---+
/' X P I J hnard
2 45
+ 40
g 35
5
c
30
25 Bottom chassis(Mg) Foamed paint
20
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 Fig.9. Cross-sectional view of the CPU cooling structure
Thernial conductivity of bottom chassis .W/mK

Fig.7. Variation of Tcpu with thcrmal which was mounted on the backside of the CPU board. Fig-
conductivity of bottom chassis ure9 shows the cross-sectional view of the CPU cooling
structure.
In the first path, heat dissipated from the CPU surface
flows through the AI heat transfer plate(36x 90x 0.3")
40 , I I into the bottom chassis, then is difhsed by the bottom chas-
sis and finally removed to the environment. The use of a Mg
35 die-cast with a thermal conductivity of 72W/mK provides a
uniform temperature distribution across the bottom chassis
30 within 10K.
In the second path, heat generated in the CPU die flows
25 through the thermal via of PCB and the AI heat spreader
(1 70x 70x 0.3") into the top chassis , then is convected to
20 ambient. This aluminum plate size is larger than that of
bottom side so as'to spread the heat more effectively on the
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
top chassis for heat dissipation because the top chassis are
Thickness of AI heat spreader ,mm made of ABS. Thermal rubbers are used between the encap-
sulant surface of the CPU and heat transfer plate interface
Fig.8. Variation of Tcpuwith thickness of AI and between the PCB and aluminum heat spreader.
heat spreader In this method , much of the heat generated in the CPU is
first conducted thorough the AI heat transfer plate into the
bottom chassis. Most of the heat from CPU is dissipated to
Table2. Example of the material properties the bottom chassis. This design concept makes it possible to
I I Thermal I Elastic I SDecific I maintain the top chassis and the keyboard at low tempera-
tures compared with the bottom chassis. This is advanta-
Material conductivity modulus gravity
(W/mK) GPa) geous from the viewpoint of human feeling.
For other devices on the bottom chassis(HDD, PC card,
etc.), the cooling concept to use the heat spreading effect of
a Mg die-casting i s similar to that of the CPU. On the other
hand, the heat from DCDC converter is mainly dissipated
through a 0.5" thick 270x 100" aluminum reinforce
plate which is attached bottom of keyboard.

Accuracy of Siniulation

Results and Cooling Concept
For these high-performance computer, the most important
cooling object is CPU which has the largest heat flux in all
devices. In this case, the best passive cooling solution is to
provide many thermal conduction paths between the CPU
and the chassis wall in order to reduce the total thermal
resistance. So we designed the two thermal conduction path
to reject the heat flow from CPU(Tape Carrier Package)
After making the prototype, steady-state temperature
measurements were recorded and design estimation was
carried out. The temperatures of the key devices were meas-
ured at the center of the surfaces with thermocouples. The
maximum operating temperature of the CPU was less than
70°C in a 35°C ambient temperature. And all the measured
temperature of the key devices were within the specifica-
tions and were in good agreement with the simulation ,as
shown in Fig.10.

1998 Intersociety Conference on Thermal Phenomena

 Consequently, the efficiency of our simulation based ther-
mal design method was proved and the minimal cooling
structure of the “Pedion” has accomplished.
CPU Vidco Kcytop Case LCD
LSI bottom
Fig. 1O.Comparison between predictions and
measurements
3.REDUCTION OF TOUCHING WARMTH
As described above ,modifying the bottom chassis to Mg
die-casting instead of a resinous material such as ABS
would result in a significant improvement in the thermal
performance, because the thermal conductivity of Mg die-
casting is far higher than that of plastic. However this char-
acteristic caused a new problem of user’s unpleasant feeling,
since the touching warmth of metal is generally far higher
than that of plastic. The reason for this problem is that,
when touched a material with low thermal conductivity such
as conventional ABS, the quantity of heat flux to the hand is
small from the narrow area in the material. On the other
hand , using a material with high thermal conductivity, such
as metal die-casting, cause a continuous heat flow fiom the
wide area in the material to the hand. This leads to an un-
comfortable sensation if held in the hand.
Therefore, touching warmth reduction of mobile computer
cabinets is one of the most important issues for thermal
designer. For example, a conventional method to solve the
problem is to attach a cloth(felt), rubber or adhering a trans-
planting pile on the surface of the metal chassis. These ma-
terials have low thermal conductivity to reduce direct heat
flow to a hand. For this reason, these conventional methods
are effective as far as the touching warmth is concerned. A
problem with the conventional method is difficult to fit them
into the shapes which have complex curvatures at the chas-
sis surface. Even if this fitting is done satisfactorily ,there is
no ideas for the product fiom the viewpoint of productivity
because the manufacturing cost will increase.
In comparing these conventional methods, the painting
surface of metallic chassis is reasonable in terms of produc-
tivity , design , and cost. However, in the general painting,
the thickness of applied paint (film) can only be about 40 ,u
m so that reduction of touching warmth cannot be expected
and the basic metallic feeling is not softened.
Summary of the Development
19
(a) E ~ o x vmint (b) Foamed Paint
U*0°
Fig. 1 1 Photography of painted surface [ 5 ]
We attempted to develop the new coating material that was
effective to reduce the touching warmth in spite of maintain-
ing the advantage of conventional method, such as its design,
productivity of processing, and associated shape for each
type. The investigation to solve the problem was ap-
proached by using the painting material as a base.
As a trial concept, we aimed to increase the thickness of
paint (film)and to decrease the thermal conductivity of
painting material. Because we hoped that the reduction of
overall heat transfer coeficient U in the paint material ,
estimated by equation(4), would contribute to the reduction
of touching warmth.
U=R/d O D D . =
(4)
2 : thermal conductivity [W/m K]
d : thickness of the paint material [m ]
Among a lot of paint samples, we found that the improved
foaming paint was promising material for our purpose due
to the following features.
The foamed paint is a synthetic material of combining the
thermally expandable micro-capsules, in which hydrocar-
bons with a low boiling point is saturated, with conventional
painting material. Thermally expandable micro-capsules
mixed in the paint is foamed throughout baking process.
And as a result, a porous structure is foamed and bubbles
are included in the painted film. Therefore, these structure
provides low thermal conductivity of the film layer. In addi-
tion, foamed paint can also increase the thickness of the film
layer which is in a range from 100 /I m to 300 ,u m
throughout the expanding process.
As can be seen in Fig. 11, the roughness of the foamed
paint surface, made by intentionally foaming, is far larger
than that of general epoxy paint. The roughness of the
foamed paint surface also contribute to reduce the contact
area upon touching and lower the heat transfer rate to a
hand.
Experimental Study
We conducted the following experiment in order to esti-
mate how touching warmth of metal cabinets could be re-
duced by using the foamed paint.
At first, we measured the temperature rise at the moment of
touching the two materials. Testing apparatus are illustrated
1998 InterSociety Conference on Thermal Phenomena
 Anibient 25°C
Rubber block
(Dummy hand)
Sample surface is heated
to keep 50°C constant
Fig. 12. resting apparatus
U
C foamed paint, such as larger thickness ,low effective thermal
.G
c 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time, s
Fig. 13. Comparison of temperature rise of dummy
hand between conventional paint and formed paint
in Fig.12. The object of this experiment was to evaluate the
effect of the foamed paint on the touching warmth by com-
paring against the conventional epoxy paint in the rate of
temperature rise. Because the sensation of touching warmth
could be quantitatively evaluated by the rate of temperature
rise at the moment of touching the two materials[6].
The apparatus consisted of a heater plate and a rubber
block (dummy hand) which has a thermocouple in the center
of its bottom surface. Two materials were tested, one was an
AI plate( 105x150~0.3") with conventional epoxy paint
(sample A) , the other was an AI plate with foamed paint
(sample B). While the test material located above a heater
was heated at 50%, the rubber block ,which served the role
of a dummy hand, equilibrated with the ambient temperature
at 25°C. When the dummy hand was quickly placed on the
material, then we started measuring the temperature rise in
the dummy hand by the thermocouple.
The result of this experiment is shown in Fig.13. The rate
of temperature rise in the rubber block was obviously differ-
ent in two cases between on touching the sample A and B.
From this measured data, it was found that the touching
warmth of metal could be reduced by changing into foamed
paint from conventional epoxy paint.
Thermal Sensation Vote Test
We also performed the thermal sensation vote test by nine
males to estimate how human being would feel at the mo-
ment of touching cach material. The three materials used for
the sensory test are shown in Table 3. In addition to the
experiment sample A and B used in above experiment, sam-
ple C(ABS with epoxy paint) was added as reference
evaluation. All samples were heated to keep 46°C constant
by testing apparatus shown in Fig. 12. Results of the thermal
sensation vote, answering in the order of sample touching
warmth when they touched the samples, are shown in Table
4. All participants answered that the sample A was felt far
warmer than the sample B and C. On the other hand. the
touching warmth of the sample B almost the same as the
sample C.
Resirlts and Discussion
As a result, we concluded that the characteristic of the
conductivity and roughness surface of the coating, could
cause the touching warmth of metal cabinet to reduce.
This new coating method ,using improved foaming paint,
has already been reached the stage of practical use. We
applied it to the bottom chassis of the "Pedion".
While we use this adiabatic foamed paint to the bottom
chassis, there is almost no influence on the temperature rise
to the devices in the cabinet. It is because the thermal resis-
tance of the part of extemal natural cooling is far larger than
9 10 that of the foamed paint, and the increase of heat resistance
by addition of the foamed paint can be neglected in the total
thermal resistance.
Tabie3. Materials for thermal sensation test
cf. ABS ~poxy~aint
Sample C (1") i (0.03")
Table4. Results of thermal sensation vote
------
t Pattern 2
__------.------_-
Pattem 3 A>>B=C
----__--_
3
-__-_
(33.30/)
20 1998 InterSociety Conference on Thermal Phenomena
 4.CONCLUSIONS <Regarding trademarks,

Thermal design of a ultra-slim notebook PC “Pedion”
(as of Septcinber 1997, according to our research) .that was
the world’s thinnest among A4-size notebook computers ,at
18mm. as well as being super lightweight at ISkg, was
carried out by using two innovative thermal solutions sum-
marized below.
The first solution is the cooling system for CPU by using
the bottom chassis(Mg die-cast) as a heat spreader com-
bined with AI heat transfer plate. And the size and geometry
of which were optimized by thermal analysis using Finite
Volume Method before making the prototype.
And as the second solution, a new coating with foamed
paint ,which can reduce touching wannth of Mg die-cast
enclosure, have developed and applied to the bottom chas-
sis.
*Microsoft‘ is a registered trademark of Microsoft Cor-
poration.
*Windows@is a registered trademark of Microsoft Cor-
poration.
*MMX@is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation.
*Pentium@is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation.
*PedionP is a trademark of Mitsubishi Electric Corpora-
tion.
*Other company and product names are trademarks or
registered trademarks of the relevant companies.

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21 1998 InterSociety Conference on Thermal Phenoinena