Vansim (Dongguan)Hardware Products Co., Ltd.
As a manufacturer of skived fins heat sink, How to choose the material for your skived fin design?
May 19,2025
As a manufacturer of skiving fins heat sink, How to choose the material for your skiving fin design?
1. Aluminum Alloys
- Lightweight: Low density (2.7 g/cm³), ideal for portable or weight-sensitive devices.
- Cost-Effective: Lower material and manufacturing costs compared to copper.
- Good Processability: High ductility allows for thin, densely packed fins via skiving (a machining process where thin fins are "peeled" from a solid block).
- Corrosion Resistance: Naturally forms a protective oxide layer, reducing maintenance needs.
Common Aluminum Alloys for Skived Heat Sinks
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- 6063 Aluminum:
- Widely used for skived fins due to balanced strength, ductility, and thermal conductivity (~150–200 W/m·K).
- Example: Heat sinks for laptops, desktop PCs, LED lighting, and consumer electronics.
- When using this grade of material, extruded materials are usually required;
- The advantage lies in that the extrusion profile can provide different shaped heat sink base designs for the skiving fin heat sink.
- 1100 Pure Aluminum:
- Higher thermal conductivity (~205 W/m·K) but softer, making it suitable for simple fin designs or low-stress applications.
Applications
- Consumer Electronics: Laptops, tablets, gaming consoles (e.g., Xbox/PlayStation heatsinks).
- LED Lighting: High-volume, cost-sensitive fixtures (e.g., streetlights, indoor LED panels).
- Automotive: Engine control units (ECUs), electric vehicle (EV) battery cooling systems (due to weight restrictions).
- General Cooling: Fan-cooled heat sinks in power supplies, routers, and industrial controls.
- New energy: High power embedded heat pipes heat sinks for inverter cooling, Charge stations.
2. Copper material for skiving fin
- Superior Thermal Conductivity: ~401 W/m·K, making it ideal for rapid heat transfer in high-power applications.
- High Thermal Mass: Absorbs and stores heat effectively, suitable for short-duration high-heat spikes.
Types of Copper Used
- Oxygen-Free High-Conductivity (OFHC) Copper( Cu1100, CU1020):
- Purest form (~99.95% copper), maximizes thermal conductivity.
- Used in premium heat sinks or critical components (e.g., CPU heat spreaders in servers).
- Brass (Copper-Zinc Alloy):
- Rarely used for skived fins due to lower conductivity (~100 W/m·K), but occasionally for decorative or specialized purposes.
Applications
- High-Power Electronics: Data center servers cooling, GPU accelerators (e.g., NVIDIA A100), and industrial power amplifiers.
- Aerospace/Medical Devices: Where reliability and thermal performance outweigh cost (e.g., avionics, laser systems).
- Hybrid Designs: Copper bases with aluminum fins (e.g., gaming laptop heatsinks) to balance conductivity and cost.
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Summary
- Aluminum alloys are the workhorse for skived heat sinks due to their optimal balance of cost, weight, and thermal performance in most applications.
- Copper is reserved for high-stakes, high-power scenarios where superior heat transfer justifies the higher cost and weight.
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