Technical Development Direction of Cold Plates

Cold plates are mainly divided into two major application tracks: computing/data center cold plates, and new energy power battery/energy storage cold plates. Their overall evolution targets six goals: higher heat flux density, lower thermal resistance, lightweight design, high reliability, integration, and low cost.

I. Structural and Flow Channel Design

1. Microchannel Cold Plate (MLCP) Becomes Mainstream

The flow channel size has evolved from the traditional 1–2 mm to 0.2–0.5 mm or even micron scale, improving heat exchange area and heat transfer coefficient. Paired with bionic tree-shaped manifolds and dual manifolds to optimize flow distribution, the branch flow deviation is controlled within ±5% to eliminate local hotspots.

Computing side: Microchannel cold plate (MLCP) serves as the core solution for high-power AI GPUs.
Battery side: Microchannels are applied in ultra-thin cooling structures between battery cells.

2. Novel Flow Channels for Enhanced Heat Transfer

TPMS lattice, porous turbulent structures, jet impingement flow channels: break the laminar flow limitation of conventional straight flow channels, strengthen fluid turbulence, and reduce temperature difference on chip surfaces. Jet impingement cold plates are suitable for ultra-high heat flux density scenarios.
Battery sector: Cooling evolves from the bottom of the module to cell-level cooling. Ultra-thin cold plates between cells, double-sided cooling, and CTC/CTB integrated box cooling bring cooling surfaces directly close to battery cells, improving temperature uniformity and supporting 4C/5C ultra-fast charging.

3. Integrated Design

Computing side: Chip packaging-level integrated microchannel cover plate (MCL) embeds flow channels inside the chip cover to shorten heat transfer paths. Integrated design of cold plate-manifold-quick connectors reduces assembly steps and lowers leakage risk.
Battery side: Cold plates are integrated with battery box structural components to combine structure and heat dissipation, cutting the number of parts and achieving weight and cost reduction.

II. Evolution of Material Systems

1) Cold Plates for Computing

Traditional materials: Pure aluminum and pure copper. Aluminum features low cost, while copper has high thermal conductivity but is heavy and expensive.
High-performance composite materials: Diamond-copper, graphene-copper, silicon carbide composites, with thermal conductivity significantly higher than pure copper. They address hotspots under ultra-high heat flux density, mostly used for high-end AI chips. Currently high-cost and under small-batch commercialization.
Surface coating: DLC-like diamond anti-corrosion coating improves resistance to coolant corrosion and balances insulation and anti-corrosion performance.

2) Cold Plates for Power Batteries & Energy Storage

Main material: Aluminum alloy, trending toward high-strength and high-thermal-conductivity aluminum alloys and aluminum-silicon alloys, to reduce thermal expansion coefficient while balancing lightweight design, pressure resistance and corrosion resistance.

Composite sheet: Aluminum-plastic composite, balancing heat dissipation and insulation for energy storage scenarios.

Trend: Further thinning on the premise of guaranteed heat dissipation. Ultra-thin cold plates (thickness:1–3 mm) fit CTC integrated solutions.

III. Manufacturing Technology Development

IV. Evolution of Cooling Technology Routes

1. Single-phase Cold Plate (Absolute Mainstream at Present)

Adopting water-ethylene glycol / propylene glycol working fluid, mature and reliable, suitable for most computing and power battery scenarios. High-temperature liquid supply (45–55°C) has become an important industry direction to cut cooling energy consumption of server rooms, driving upgrades of cold plate flow channels, sealing and materials.

2. Two-phase (Phase-change) Cold Plate

Absorbs heat using latent heat of working fluid phase change with extremely strong heat dissipation capacity. However, gas-liquid two-phase flow has poor stability and imposes stringent requirements on sealing, pressure control and working fluid purity.

In the short term, it is mainly deployed in special scenarios and supercomputing pilot tests. Large-scale commercialization still faces reliability challenges. It will be gradually verified for ultra-high power consumption scenarios above 2000W per chip in the future.

3. Battery-side: Phase Change Material Composite Cold Plate

Composite structure of cold plate + phase change material suppresses temperature rise peak during fast charging and reduces instantaneous thermal shock, applied for energy storage and high-power power batteries.

V. Reliability and System Integration

1. Upgrade of Leakage Prevention and Monitoring System

Blind-mate quick connectors, negative pressure systems, water leakage detection, pressure decay monitoring. Cold plate bodies reduce weld defects to mitigate leakage risk. Cold plates are evolving from simple components to assembly solutions of "cold plate + manifold + connector + sensor".

2. Intelligent Thermal Management Integration

Cold plates integrate temperature and pressure sensors. Cooperating with BMS / computing thermal management controllers, they dynamically adjust flow rate to achieve precise temperature control.

Battery scenarios: Realize differentiated cooling of cells.

Computing scenarios: Dynamically adjust flow according to chip load to reduce pump power consumption.

3. Standardization

Standardization of interfaces, processes, dimensions and test specifications reduces supply chain costs. Cold plates are decoupled from complete machines to improve versatility.

VI. Summary of Differences Between the Two Tracks

◆ Computing AI Server Cold Plates

Target: Ultra-high heat flux density (hundreds of W/cm²), small volume, low thermal resistance
Focus: Microchannels, copper/high thermal conductivity composite materials, precision etching / brazing, packaging-level integration; single-phase as primary solution, two-phase as reserve technology for future.

◆ Power Battery & Energy Storage Cold Plates

Target: Large heat exchange area, lightweight design, high pressure resistance, long service life, low cost, good temperature uniformity
Focus: Large-size aluminum cold plates, friction stir welding / laser welding, cell-level cooling, CTC integrated design; compatible with 4C-5C ultra-fast charging and thermal runaway protection.

VII. Overall Core Contradiction

The trade-off between performance improvement (microchannels, composite materials, complex flow channels) and cost, yield rate and reliability.

Short term: Traditional processes (brazing, FSW, laser welding) + optimized flow channels + aluminum alloy/copper substrates remain the main force for mass production.
Mid-to-long term: Composite materials, 3D printing, two-phase cold plates and packaging-level integration will gradually penetrate high-end segmented scenarios.