Communications equipment must be capable of rapid deployment and ensure interoperability with existing platforms even in the most extreme environments, even while new technologies are making the electronic components that make up these systems smaller and hotter.
The rise of AI, both in data processing and decision-making, is increasing both the power consumption and heat generation of electronics. According to Stephen Riker, business development manager, Aerospace & Defense, nVent SCHROFF, this additional heat is creating one of the biggest challenges today for defense electronics engineers.

The challenges of SWaP

“The military is concentrating today on three main development drivers, based around size, weight, and power – or SWaP,” says Riker. “Engineers are being challenged to place more electronics into a smaller footprint – more processing power into a smaller envelope.

“Protecting and cooling these electronics is really one of the biggest challenges today for electronic packaging and for engineers, and it’s only going to become more complex as systems like AI and machine learning are introduced.”
Riker explains that these new systems are going to require tremendous amounts of computing power to perform the advanced functions required: “The electronics, processors, the chips themselves, are getting smaller and hotter. And when the footprint of a chip gets smaller, then it’s going to be more difficult to dissipate heat.”

For example, airframe upgrades often require expanding the space for electronics, which is difficult due to manufacturing constraints. The electronics package must fit inside the same space. And to add to all this – thermal cooling systems on military vehicles or aircraft need to be extremely tough.
Protecting technology in harsh environments

nVent SCHROFF has been pioneering electronic infrastructure for a wide range of applications, including C5ISR, PNT, radar, and weapons systems for more than six decades.
“nVent offers a tremendous line of products that are used in anything with high shock and vibration, which means they go into jets, tanks, satellites. There are a tremendous number of companies that use our product, anything that has high shock and vibration and critical components that need to be cooled,” Riker says.

Riker expands on how nVent SCHROFF products work in conjunction with the electronics. “We have a line of products that dissipate the heat from the hot processor itself into a housing. We’re the world’s largest producer of what we call printed circuit board (PCB) retention products, which not only keep these hot computer assemblies in place, but also sink heat from that hot processor into an environment which will cool it. We’re talking about conduction cooling, forced air and liquid. These are the three avenues right now in the military that they are using to cool electronics. There are specific specifications, like VPX, VITA and SOSA that most of the military is adopting.”
However, developments in AI technology means that chips are running hotter than ever before.

“Many of the companies today are using conduction cooling, but with AI and machine learning, we’re going to see that expand. They’ll no longer be able to cool electronics just with conduction. They’re going to need to go to something else, like liquid, and we are providing that service to our customers today.”

While people have been using liquid cooling in home computers for years, Riker notes, for military use, systems need to be ruggedized: “That’s where some of the new specs, like VITA 48.4, give you the groundwork such for doing that, and we’ve used that specification to come out with some of our own products that solve that problem – liquid cooling in a ruggedized environment.”

Chip-level cooling – a new frontier

Riker explains that with AI the next step of thermal cooling technology will have to be different. “I see AI revolutionizing data history and really being adopted throughout the military. Next generation processing power is really going to fuel all of this. Faster data rates. You’re going to need more complex software programs written for new systems, but it’s still going to be size, weight and power that will not change. SWaP is going to remain a huge consideration in electronic packaging.
“What we’re looking at now is not only liquid cooling, but liquid on chip, which is a little different, instead of packaging a board in aluminium, now you have a device that cools at the chip level. And that’s really, I think, the next frontier for us as a company.”