JP7506337B2 - Computer system and method for manufacturing the same - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a computer system including a housing chassis having at least one housing wall, and a system board having at least one heat-generating member and housed in the housing chassis, the heat-generating member being disposed on the system board. The present invention further relates to a method for manufacturing a computer system.

Computer systems of the above type and methods for their manufacture are known in the prior art. For example, active components of a system board, such as chipsets and processors, often require specific means for dissipating heat generated during operation of the computer system. In addition to traditional air cooling systems, which usually require fans, there is an increasing use of heat conduction systems, preferably passive heat dissipation means.

For example, DE 10 2019 103 071 A1 discloses a computer system including a computer housing having multiple side walls and a motherboard having at least one heat generating component and arranged on the computer housing, the heat generating component being arranged on the motherboard. The side wall of the computer housing facing the heat generating component includes a thermal conductor protruding toward the heat generating component. The thermal conductor is manufactured by a die casting process and is designed to absorb the thermal energy of the heat generating component generated by thermal conduction during a given operation, and dissipates the thermal energy to the corresponding side wall by thermal conduction.

The object of the present invention is to describe flexible cooling concepts for computer systems and apparatus and manufacturing methods for implementing them. Preferably, the disclosed cooling concepts are suitable for a variety of different computer system configurations and are intended to be particularly easy to manufacture.

The above-mentioned object can be achieved by a computer system including a housing chassis having at least one housing wall and a fastening element disposed on the housing wall, a system board having at least one heat-generating member and housed in the housing chassis, the heat-generating member being disposed on the system board, and a heat-conducting means disposed to be sandwiched between the housing wall and the system board. The heat-conducting means is detachably attached to the housing chassis by the fastening element, and is designed to dissipate waste heat generated by the heat-generating member to the housing chassis.

The detachable connection between the heat conducting means and the fastening elements of the housing by clamping in particular facilitates the integration of the heat conducting means into the housing chassis and the adaptation of the housing chassis to a specific system board. This makes it possible to provide a uniform housing chassis for use with various system boards having heat generating components arranged in different locations. To adapt the housing chassis to each system board or to various thermal designs by different component manufacturers, it is only necessary to design the corresponding heat conducting means and insert the heat conducting means into the housing chassis. In addition to simplifying the manufacturing of the computer system, the effort required to keep a large number of different housing chassis available can also be avoided or at least significantly reduced.

For example, the fastening elements may be designed as bolts protruding from the housing wall or from the heat conducting means. In particular, the fastening elements may be fastening bolts arranged at predefined attachment points on the housing wall for fastening the system board. Such fastening bolts are usually already provided at defined locations and thus do not require any further effort in the manufacture of the computer system.

In at least one embodiment, the heat conducting means comprises a sheet metal part, in particular a punched and/or embossed aluminum plate. Such a sheet metal part can be manufactured very easily and inexpensively. Moreover, in particular an aluminum plate has a high thermal conductivity and is therefore very suitable for forming a thermal connection between the system board and the housing wall.

In at least one embodiment, the heat generating component is disposed on the surface of the system board facing the housing wall, and the heat conducting means is disposed so as to be sandwiched between the housing wall and the heat generating component. In this way, a direct heat conducting path is formed between the heat generating component and the housing wall.

According to a second embodiment of the present invention, a method for manufacturing a computer system is disclosed, the method comprising:
- providing an enclosure chassis having at least one enclosure wall and a fastening element arranged on said enclosure wall;
- inserting a heat conducting means into the housing chassis, the heat conducting means being fixed to the housing wall by at least a first subset of the fastening elements; and - fixing a system board having the heat generating member to the housing wall by at least a second subset of the fastening elements so as to form a heat conducting connection between at least one heat generating member arranged on the system board and the housing chassis.

Such a manufacturing method is particularly easy to implement. In comparison with known manufacturing methods, only a loose insertion of the heat transfer means into the housing chassis is required. If necessary, this can also be done automatically, for example by means of a placement robot. No direct screwing, welding or other fastening of the heat transfer means to the housing chassis is performed, since the heat transfer means is firmly fixed to the housing chassis by subsequent fastening of the system board.

Further advantageous aspects of the present invention are disclosed in the accompanying claims and in the detailed description of the embodiments below.
The present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a first computer system having heat conducting means welded to the housing wall. FIG. 2 shows a second computer system having heat transfer means held by additional positioning bolts. FIG. 3 shows a third computer system having heat transfer means held by existing fastening bolts. FIG. 4 shows a schematic cross-sectional view of one of the computer systems. FIG. 5 illustrates steps in a method for manufacturing a computer system.

Figure 1 shows one embodiment of a computer system having a means for dissipating heat from heat-generating components on a system board.

The computer system 1 includes a housing chassis 2, which in an exemplary embodiment is designed as a lower shell of a steel plate housing. The housing chassis 2 has, among other things, a first housing wall 3 in the form of a substrate or lower plate, and further housing walls 4, 5 formed on or attached to the first housing wall 3, which housing walls 4, 5 form the side walls of the computer system 1.

A number of fastening elements are arranged on the first housing wall 3, and the fastening elements are used to fasten a system board, not shown in FIG. 1. In particular, the fastening elements are fastening bolts 6 having female threads that are screwed into the first housing wall 3.

To cool one or more so-called thermal hot spots on the system board, heat conducting means 7 are provided in the computer system 1 of FIG. 1, which in the exemplary embodiment is designed as an embossed aluminum plate. For example, a hot spot may be a location on the system board where a heat generating component such as a chipset is located.

The heat conducting means 7 has a first protruding portion 8 and a total of four second descending portions 9, and the second descending portions 9 descend toward the first housing wall 3. The heat conducting means 7 is directly welded to the first housing wall 3 at the descending portions 3, for example, by spot welding.

The above arrangement provides good thermal conduction between the thermal hotspot in region 8 and the housing chassis 2. The above arrangement is therefore suitable for passive cooling of components such as voltage regulators and/or chipsets. However, since the thermal conduction means are welded to the housing chassis 2 for this purpose, the housing chassis 2 must be designed specifically for the respective system board to be used. It is therefore not possible to subsequently insert into the housing chassis 2 a system board other than the one originally intended for use, e.g. a system board having a chipset elsewhere.

FIG. 2 shows another embodiment of a computer system 10 that is particularly easily adapted to accommodate one or more hot spots elsewhere on the system board. The computer system 10 has a similar design to the computer system 1 shown in FIG. 1. Therefore, components already described will not be described further here.

Different from the computer system 1, the first housing wall 3 of the computer system 10 further has two positioning bolts 11, which are used to fix the removable heat conducting means 12 to the housing chassis 11. Therefore, the removable heat conducting means 12 has a similar configuration to the above-mentioned welded heat conducting means 7. In particular, the heat conducting means 12 also has a first protruding portion 8 and four second descending portions 9.

Unlike the above-mentioned welded heat conducting means 7, two of the descending parts 9 of the heat conducting means 12 are provided with fixing holes 13, and the heat conducting means 12 can be fixed to a predetermined position, for example, by the positioning bolts 11 through the fixing holes 13. In this way, the housing chassis 2 and the heat conducting means 12 can be detachably connected.

The positioning pin 11, together with the mounting hole 13, provides a machine code that ensures that the heat transfer means 12 is fixed specifically to a predetermined location on the housing chassis 2.

In the illustrated embodiment, the heat transfer means 12 is designed to be point symmetrical with respect to the center of the protrusion 8 so that the heat transfer means 12 can be rotated 180° without impairing its function.

In other embodiments not shown, asymmetrically designed positioning bolts 11 and/or heat conducting means 12 are provided, the arrangement of the heat conducting means 12 being determined by the positioning bolts 11 and/or the fixing holes 13. For example, three of the four descending sections 9 may be provided with three arbitrarily arranged positioning bolts 11 and three fixing holes 13.

Unlike the arrangement of FIG. 1, the heat conducting means 12 of FIG. 2 is not rigidly fixed to the first housing wall 3. Instead, the heat conducting means 12 is held in a clamped manner in the housing chassis 2 by subsequent tightening of the system board with the fastening bolts 6, as described below with reference to FIG. 5. Experiments have shown that a detachable clamped connection of the heat conducting means 12 provides approximately 20% higher thermal conductivity compared to a spot welded connection of the heat conducting means 7.

Figure 3 shows another computer system 20. In the computer system 20 shown in Figure 4, the installation of the additional positioning bolt 11 as shown in Figure 2 is omitted. Instead, the removable heat sink 21 shown in Figure 3 has two mounting lugs 22, 23, each of which extends to a tightening bolt 6 provided for mounting the system board.

In the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 4, the two mounting lugs 22, 23 form part of a common descending portion 24 that is in direct mechanical and thermal contact with the first housing wall 3. The heat conducting means 21 also has two further descending portions 25 that are also in direct contact with the first housing wall 3.

2 and 3, the descending portion 25 is not provided with any additional fastening holes. Instead, the fastening lugs 22, 23 have fastening holes 26 near their respective ends. The diameter of the fastening holes 26 is selected so that the fastening bolts 6 are loosely received in the fastening holes 26. Thus, in the computer system 20 shown in FIG. 4, it is also possible to simply insert the heat conducting means 21 loosely into the housing chassis 2, and then install a system board to hold the heat conducting means 21 between the system board and the first housing wall 3.

Figure 4 shows a schematic cross-sectional view of one of the computer systems 1, 10 or 20 in an assembled state. It can be seen that the heat conducting means 7, 12 or 21 is in direct heat conducting contact with a heat generating member 30. The heat generating member 30 may, for example, correspond to a chipset portion of the system board 31. In this exemplary embodiment, the heat generating member 30 is located on the underside of the system board 31 facing the first housing wall 3.

Alternatively, the heat generating component 30 can be disposed on the top surface opposite the system board 31. In this case, the thermal energy generated by the heat generating component 30 is indirectly dissipated by thermal conduction through the system board 31. Modern multi-layer system boards 31 in particular have a relatively high copper content, thus ensuring good thermal conduction through the system board 31.

Figure 5 shows a schematic diagram of a method for manufacturing one of the computer systems 10 or 20.

In the first step S1, a housing chassis 2 having a first housing wall 3 is manufactured. For example, a steel plate can be shaped by punching and stamping to form a half shell.

In the next step S2, one or more tightening bolts 6 are screwed or inserted into the first housing wall 3. If necessary, additional positioning bolts 11 may be provided in the housing wall 3, as shown in FIG. 2.

In a further step S3, one of the heat conducting means 12 or 21 is loosely inserted into the housing chassis 2. In this step, the heat conducting means 12 or 21 is not yet finally tightened.

In step S4, the system board 31 is inserted to cover the heat conducting means 12 or 21 already inserted in the housing chassis 2 from above. Prior to this, thermal paste may be applied to the contact parts such as the protrusions 9 to improve thermal contact with the heat generating member 30 to be cooled.

If the computer system being manufactured does not have heat generating components that are cooled by thermal conduction, steps S3 and S4 are omitted. For example, a relatively low power system board, or a system board that is cooled by other cooling means, may be similarly installed in the same enclosure chassis 2 as that used to mount the system board 31 that requires cooling by thermal conduction.

Then, in step S5, the inserted system board 31 is screwed in with the tightening bolts 6. This ensures the adhesion of the heat conduction means 12 or 21 that was previously inserted into the housing chassis 2.

In the above embodiment, only a single thermal hot spot or protrusion 8 is described, but it goes without saying that a heat conducting means having multiple protrusions 8 or multiple heat conducting means can be provided to cool multiple heat generating components.

1 Computer system 2 Case chassis 3 (First) case wall 4 (Second) case wall 5 (Third) case wall 6 Fastening bolt 7 (Welded) heat conducting means 8 Protrusion 9 Descending portion 10 Computer system 11 Positioning bolt 12 (Removable) heat conducting means 13 Fixing hole 20 Computer system 21 (Removable) heat conducting means 22 (First) mounting lug 23 (Second) mounting lug 24 (Common) descending portion 25 (Further) descending portion 26 Fixing hole 30 Heat generating member 31 System board S1 to S5 Implementation process

Claims (10)

1. A computer system comprising:
an enclosure chassis having at least one enclosure wall and a fastening bolt disposed at a predetermined attachment point of said enclosure wall and protruding from said enclosure wall , said fastening bolt having an internal thread for fastening a system board ;
a system board accommodated in the case chassis and screwed to the fastening bolt , the system board having at least one heat generating component disposed thereon ; and a heat conducting means disposed so as to be sandwiched between the case wall and the system board.
Including,
The heat conducting means includes a fixing hole corresponding to the fastening bolt, and is removably attached to the housing chassis by the fastening bolt , the diameter of the fixing hole is selected to loosely receive the fastening bolt, and the heat conducting means is configured to dissipate waste heat generated by the heat-generating component to the housing chassis . 2. The computer system according to claim 1 , wherein the heat conducting means is fixed to the housing chassis at a predetermined location and/or at a predetermined position by the fastening bolts . 2. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein the heat conducting means comprises a sheet metal part, the sheet metal part being in particular a punched and/or embossed aluminium plate. 4. The computer system of claim 3, wherein the thermal conduction means has a substrate formed from a first portion of the sheet metal portion , and a first contact portion formed from a second portion of the sheet metal portion and protruding from the substrate toward the system board for thermally connecting with the at least one heat-generating component , the first contact portion being provided at a position corresponding to a position of the at least one heat-generating component arranged on the system board . 5. The computer system of claim 4, wherein the heat conducting means further comprises a second contact portion formed by a third portion of the sheet metal part and protruding toward the housing wall for thermally connecting or mechanically fastening to the housing wall . 2. The computer system according to claim 1 , wherein the heat generating component is disposed on a surface of the system board facing the case wall , and the heat conducting means is disposed so as to be sandwiched between the case wall and the heat generating component . 7. The computer system of claim 6, wherein said heat conducting means is in direct heat conducting contact with a heat generating component. 6. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the at least one heat generating component is disposed on a second side of the system board opposite the housing wall, and thermal energy generated by the heat generating component is indirectly dissipated to the thermal conduction means by thermal conduction through the system board. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the heat generating component comprises at least one of a chipset, a voltage regulator, a processor, and a graphics component. 1. A method for manufacturing a computer system, comprising:
providing an enclosure chassis having at least one enclosure wall and a plurality of fastening bolts disposed at predetermined mounting points on and protruding from said enclosure wall, the plurality of fastening bolts having internal threads for fastening a system board;
loosely inserting a thermally conductive means into the enclosure chassis, the thermally conductive means including fastening holes corresponding to fastening bolts in a first subset of the plurality of fastening bolts and held in position in the enclosure wall by fastening bolts in at least the first subset of the plurality of fastening bolts, the fastening hole diameters being selected to loosely receive the plurality of fastening bolts ; and
11. A method for manufacturing a computer system, comprising: a step of fixing a system board having at least one heat generating component to the case wall by screwing the system board to fastening bolts included in at least a second subset of the plurality of fastening bolts, thereby forming a thermally conductive connection between the heat generating component and the case chassis .

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