THERMAL MANAGEMENT OF 5G SMARTPHONES: HEAT DISSIPATION AND INSULATION

Managing heat and temperature in 5G smartphones is essential to prolong service life (especially for components), and solutions to thermal management challenges must be addressed at the board level, circuit design/operation level, and through the use of heat management solutions.

AP heat dissipation

Application processor cooling solution using thermal pad

In smart phones, intensive application processors, power management circuits and camera modules are the main heat sources. AP contains several sub components, such as GPU, multimedia codec, especially CPU, which generates the most heat.

In addition, due to the relatively small size and complicated circuitry of APs, they tend to generate more heat. This heat can become a problem when the microprocessor is located in a housing with little ventilation or a closed enclosure. It is necessary to control thermal power consumption or increase heat dissipation means to prevent high temperature from damaging the microprocessor and surrounding circuits.

PMIC heat dissipation

     Heat dissipation of power management integrated circuits through thermal grease

PMIC-power management integrated circuit is one of the well-known components that generate a lot of heat during the operation of the smartphone.

For thermal management of performance components such as power management IC, ram and image processor, prostech provides curable thermal gap fillers. These fillers have good thermal conductivity, physical stability under vibration and temperature cycles, and can relieve stress.

General heat dissipation

The graphite sheet (PGs) can evenly transfer the heat generated by the CPU / flash memory chip on the PCB of the mobile phone motherboard to the metal bracket and frame. At the same time, the heat from the high heat CPU chip can be quickly distributed to the plane of the whole graphite sheet.

The graphite sheet on the steel frame on the back of the battery compartment also has the function of evenly distributing heat to the touch screen and emitting battery heat. It solves the problem that it will be hot to use for a long time.

Heat insulation of 5G antenna

Use heat insulation pads to insulate 5G antennas

At present, the complex 5G mmwave antenna module integrates power amplifiers, which generate heat near the edge of the equipment. Due to space constraints, it is difficult to reduce the surface temperature by increasing the air gap, and throttling will damage 5G performance. Traditional heat dissipation solutions are also not an option because they are conductive and interfere with RF signals.