Enhanced heat transfer characteristics and energy efficiency of ceramic manifold micro-channels for automobiles high-power IGBT cooling

To improve thermal management for high power automotive insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) modules, this study proposes a near-junction cooling solution utilizing a manifold micro-channel (AlN MMC-BCS) integrated within the packaging ceramic layer. The thermal and hydraulic performance is evaluated and optimized via an experimentally validated numerical approach combined with multi-objective optimization. Results show that the optimized AlN MMC-BCS reduces pressure drop by 27.6 % at 8 L/min without sacrificing heat transfer performance, while achieving nearly twice the heat transfer coefficient compared to conventional pin-fin structures. These enhancements are attributed to optimized manifold and micro-channel designs that promote jet impingement and vortex-induced mixing, significantly improving local flow velocity and turbulent mixing efficiency. Furthermore, the AlN MMC-BCS demonstrates superior thermal performance with a total thermal resistance as low as 0.25 °C/W-a reduction of 0.07 °C/W-effectively mitigating high-temperature hotspots and uneven temperature distribution among multiple chips. The maximum temperature is consistently controlled between 100.5 °C and 103.5 °C, with reductions of 15.9 °C in peak temperature and 9.5 °C in temperature difference. Overall, the proposed cooling strategy significantly enhances thermal uniformity and cooling efficiency at substantially lower pumping power.