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High performance heat sink production machines

Heat Sink Skiving Machines built for Europe

Skived fin heat sinks are made from raw metal block where fins are literally carved out of the heat sink base by a special blade tool. Since both fins and base are shaped from a single piece of raw metal block, skived fin heat sink are considered to be the best thermal conductivity between fins and base. Skiving method typically is used for aluminum and copper heat sink. Although it could be more costly than extrusion, skiving method is an ideal manufacturing method for prototyping and high performance applications and offers a superior heat dissipation.

Depending on their shapes and materials, heat sinks can be made by many manufacturing methods. The most common and cost effective methods include extrusion, forging, casting and stamping. Other methods to produce higher performing heat sinks include CNC machining, skiving and swaging. Although they are more expensive, they can produce high efficient and compact heat sinks with features that cannot be done by other methods.

Heat Sink Fin Skiving production explained on an old uncovered machines.

How do they make Skived Fin heat sinks?

Our fin skiving machines can skive fins from 50µm till 3 mm thickness

Our fin skiving machines can handle prototype making without tooling and moulding costs, serial production or unmanned continue production

Skived Fin Heat Sinks

Skived heat sinks can be constructed of aluminium or copper allowing for full, one-single-piece solutions without thermal barriers for high performance cooling.

Skived Fin Heat Sinks offerhighly optimized cooling as they allow for higher fin densities than what is manufacturable using extrusion methodologies, but do not have an interface joint that restricts heat flow like bonded or brazed fin heat sinks. Unlike bonded or brazed heat sinks, Skived Fin Heat Sinks are constructed from a single piece of material and offer reduced thermal resistance since there is no joint between a base and fins. These heat sinks are manufactured by precisely slicing the top of the base, called skiving, folding it back to where it is perpendicular to the base, and repeating at regular intervals to create fins.

The skiving process enables high fin density and thin fin heat sink geometries for optimal thermal performance. By packing as much fin surface area into a given volume, skived fin heat sinks have greater heat transfer than other single piece construction heat sinks such as extruded aluminum heat sinks. Compared to extruded aluminum, skived fin heat sink fabrication does not rely on expensive tooling, providing greater design flexibility and faster prototyping. Instead, each fin is cut separately using the same tool which allows for lower tooling costs. 

 
 

Skived Heat Sinks tooling and production cost compared to other type of heat sinks production

Best ROI in High Performance Heat Sinks

Benefits of a Skived fin Heat Sink

Performance of different types of heat sinks

Aluminium extruded and die cast heat sinks dominate the industry.  As devises that require cooling becoming smaller and heat generation increases, companies are forced to look for a more efficient cooling solutions. One of them is SKIVED FIN heat sinks.

Comparing Skived fin heat sink design to bonded fins type assembly, Skived Fins will outperform by large margin due to bonded assembly.  Thermal transfer is somewhat reduced by the bonding agent added thermal resistance. There are five common techniques that are used to manufacture heat sinks out of one piece:

  • Die Casting
  • Machining
  • Extrusion 
  • Forging
  • Skiving Fins

Thermal Conductivity

Diecasting is a method for manufacturing complex shapes in high volumes and low cost. Initial tooling cost outlay is high, but the parts cost during the production run is relatively low. Drawback is porous structure as the molten aluminium alloy cools in the die-set it expands creating voids. The porous structure weakens the part and adds to thermal resistance to the heat sink.

Extruded aluminium alloy heat sinks are most cost effective way for manufacturing linear shapes. The drawback is the limitation in the freedom in design, but this method requires low cost tooling. During the extrusion, alloy is heated below melting point and force-feed thru the forming die-set. However the grain structure cannot be controlled evenly and shape of the heatsink cannot be optimized completely thus somewhat reduce thermal performance.

Machined heat sinks: This way of producing is due to high CNC machining costs of machined heat sinks, economically feasible only for prototyping and special low volume and high cost products. Cost of production is limiting this heat sinks to prototype production.

Forging is the most effective method to produce complex shapes in high quantity and also offers interesting thermal advantages due to processing alloys at room temperature. Due to the nature of the forging process, part is formed at high pressure and low temperature, process that allow better control of the grain structure. Making heat sinks stronger and better conductors of heat. See here for more info on this subject.

Skiving fins is the latest technology, which is very promissing and grows exponential due to the many benefits: heat sink is formed out of one block with the highest cooling capacity per weight of material. 

Skived Fin Heat Sinks offer highly optimized cooling as they allow for higher fin densities than what is manufacturable using extrusion methodologies, but do not have an interface joint that restricts heat flow like bonded or brazed fin heat sinks. Unlike bonded or brazed heat sinks, Skived Fin Heat Sinks are constructed from a single piece of material and offer reduced thermal resistance since there is no joint between a base and fins. These heat sinks are manufactured by precisely slicing the top of the base, called skiving, folding it back to where it is perpendicular to the base, and repeating at regular intervals to create fins.

The skiving process enables high fin density and thin fin heat sink geometries for optimal thermal performance. By packing as much fin surface area into a given volume, skived fin heat sinks have greater heat transfer than other single piece construction heat sinks such as extruded aluminum heat sinks. Compared to extruded aluminum, skived fin heat sink fabrication does not rely on expensive tooling, providing greater design flexibility and faster prototyping. Instead, each fin is cut separately using the same tool which allows for lower tooling costs. 

Skived heat sinks can be constructed of aluminum or copper allowing for full, one-piece copper solutions for high performance cooling. 

Heatsink Surface Area

Increased surface area of the heat sink will yield lower thermal resistance and better component cooling, but only if boundary layer is not formed and fins close proximity do not prohibit flow of air. When designing extruded part, fins must be tapered so that the aluminium alloy will pass through the tool without breaking it. The number of fins in an extrusion limited by strength of the die set and the size of the extrusion. These restrictions have negative impact on the surface area.

Skived fins require also no taper for extraction from the die casted moulding tool, allowing for more fins per given heat sink size.  The Skived fin heat sink increases the surface area by 21% without increasing the size compared to casted parts. The result is improved thermal performance.

Reduced Cost

Depending on design, skived fin heat sink process can simplify manufacturing process. In cases when secondary operation required when working with extruded or die-cast heat sinks in skiving fins process this can be part of a single operation. That can greatly influence cost of the finished product. As the tooling cost is ZERO, this influence drastic the production cost!

Conclusion

Skived fin heat sinks together with Forged heat sinks offer many advantages over machined, die cast and extruded processes. The improved thermal performance due to aluminium grain structure coupled with the increased surface area without increasing the size of the heat sink and low process cost are main advantages. Skiving fins is also a very effective method for forming copper heat sink. Copper is difficult to extrude because it must be heated to high temperatures to soften the metal, making it challenging. Skiving is a cold process, and copper heat sinks can be formed with minimal waste.

Skiving by Wikipedia

Skiving or scarfing is the process of cutting material off in slices, usually metal, but also leather or laminates. Skiving is used instead of rolling the material to shape when the material must not be work hardened, or must not shed minute slivers of metal later which is common in cold rolling processes.

In metalworking, skiving can be used to remove a thin dimension of material or to create thin slices in an existing material, such as heat sinks where a large amount of surface area is required relative to the volume of the piece of metal.

The process involves moving the strip past precision-profiled slotted tools made to an exact shape, or past plain cutting tools. The tools are usually made of tungsten carbide-based compounds. 

Skiving requires a minimum material feed rate to cut successfully. At speeds below those of metal planing or about 10 meters/minute (33 feet/minute), the skiving tools can be vibrated at high frequency to increase the relative speed between the tool and workpiece.

Heat sinks - Skiving machine producing copper heat sink fins.

Skiving is also used for the manufacturing of heat sinks for PC cooling products. A PC cooler created by skiving has the benefit that the heat sink base and fins are created from a single piece of material (copper or aluminum), providing improved heat dissipation and heat transfer from base to fins. Additionally, the skiving process also increases the roughness of the fins. Unlike the underside of a heat sink, which needs to be smooth for maximum contact area with the heat source, the fins benefit from this roughness because it increases the fins' surface area on which to dissipate heat into the air. The fins may be made much thinner and closer together than by extrusion or formed sheet processes, which can offer greater heat transfer in high-performance waterblocks for water cooling.

Skiving by Wikipedia

 

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