Heat Transfer Analysis and Validation of Heat Dissipation Characteristics in Miniaturized Transmitters

Abstract

This study focuses on the cooling design of miniaturized transmitters, addressing structural and spatial constraints in response to demands for miniaturization and high performance. Due to the anticipated increase by adopting high-heat generating components and integration levels, it is necessary to improve the thermal dissipation characteristics of miniaturized transmitters to ensure adequate temperature margins. To achieve this, graphite and copper sheets are applied to the mounting of miniaturized transmitters. To ensure thermal reliability under restricted installation requirements, thermal transfer analysis and actual measurements were conducted for verification. Considering the boundary conditions with which the miniaturized transmitter operates within a sealed space without forced convection and is mounted on an internal structure, thermal transfer analysis at both ambient and high temperatures confirmed that the primary heat-generating components operate within their permissible temperature limits. By applying the copper sheet to secure additional temperature margins for the components, an increase of over 6% in temperature margin was achieved compared to the basic model. Furthermore, the correlation analysis between the simulation and experimental results demonstrated a discrepancy of only 1%, proving the reliability of the simulation results. To minimize the air gap between the copper sheet and the bottom surface of housing, applying a bimetallic interface bonding method such as brazing is expected to achieve high thermal conductivity efficiency, thereby securing additional temperature margins.