Heat Dissipation¶

The Cyclone V processors installed on the MitySOM-5CSx family of modules consume varied amounts of power based on customer specific applications. In some instances a heatsink and/or heat spreader design may be required to keep the processor within manufacturer specified operating limits. As every application and environment is unique the same solution will not work for them all. Please contact your Critical Link account representative to discuss the options mentioned below and others that have been employed by both our customers and ourselves in our designs or new suggestions specific to your application.

Heat Spreader¶

The use of a heat spreader with or without the attachment of a heatsink with fins and/or active cooling is one such option. We have developed a sample heat spreader which may be used by customers as either a finished product or we are happy to provide the design files to be used as the basis for a custom version that better meets your heat-dissipation needs. This spreader mounts in 4 places; the two mounting holes on the rear of the module as well as two additional mounting holes placed in the carrier board just outside of the connector.

Note that the spreader is designed to use 1mm Gap Pad between the spreader and processor and RAM. The pad we have used in the past was from Bergquist (Part # GPVOUS-0.040-00-0816) which is cut to size.

Below is a 3D image showing the heat spreader (translucent gray) over the top of a module.

You can view mechanical dimensions of these mounting holes from the following wiki page (https://support.criticallink.com/redmine/projects/mityarm-5cs/wiki/Mounting_Hole_Locations).

In the files section below there is a zip file (94-900288-1B MitySOM Thermal Spreader.zip) containing both a PDF drawing of the heat spreader as well as a .STEP file.

Stick-On Heatsink¶

In low vibration environments (such as a desk or fixed equipment) is the use of a "stick-on" heatsink that may or may not include a fan. We do not recommend such a solution for high vibration environments as there is no mechanical attachment to the module/carrier board and damage to the processor may occur or the heatsink may fall off allowing the temperatures to exceed the specified maximums.

Moving Air¶

One of the most efficient ways to cool the processor is to have moving air of some kind blowing over the processor (and possibly in conjunction with a heatsink).