Intel
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Pentium
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III Processor in the FC-PGA2 Package Thermal Design Guidelines
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8. Conclusion
As the complexity of today's microprocessors continues to increase, so do the power dissipation
requirements. Care must be taken to ensure that the additional power is properly dissipated. Heat can be
dissipated using passive heatsinks, fans and/or active cooling devices. Further thermal solutions can be
achieved through the use of ducting.
The simplest and most cost effective method is to use an extruded heatsink and a system fan. The size of
the heatsink and the output of the fan can be varied to balance size and space constraints with acoustic
noise. This document has presented the conditions and requirements for properly designing a heatsink
solution for an FC-PGA2 packaged processor based system. Properly designed solutions provide
adequate cooling to keep the processor within thermal specifications. This is accomplished by providing
a low local-ambient temperature and creating a minimal thermal resistance between the processor core
and the local-ambient airflow. Active fan heatsinks or ducting can be used to cool the processor(s) if
proper case and package temperatures cannot be maintained otherwise. By maintaining the processor's
case temperature at or below the values specified in the processor datasheet, a system can guarantee
proper functionality and reliability of these processors.
