Design of Thermal Ground Planes for Cooling of Foldable Smartphones

Foldable smartphones are expected to be widely commercialized in the near future. Thermal ground plane (TGP), known as vapor chamber or two-dimensional flat heat pipe, is a promising solution for the thermal management of foldable smartphones. There are two approaches to designing a TGP for foldable smartphones. One approach uses two TGPs connected by a graphite bridge and the other approach uses a single, large, and foldable TGP. In this study, different thermal management solutions are simulated for a representative foldable smartphone with screen dimensions of 144 × 138.3 mm² (twice the screen of iPhone 6 s with a 10 mm gap). In addition, the simulation includes two heat sources representing a main processor with dimensions of 14.45 × 14.41 mm² and power of 3.3 W (A9 processor in iPhone 6S) and a broadband processor with dimensions of 8.26 × 9.02 mm² and power of 2.5 W (Qualcomm broadband processor). For the simulation, a finite element method (FEM) model is calibrated and verified by steady-state experiments of two different TGPs. The calibrated model is then used to study three different cases: a graphite heat spreader, two TGPs with a graphite hinge, and a single, large, and foldable TGP. In the fully unfolded configuration, using a graphite heat spreader, the temperature difference across the spreader's surface is about 17 °C. For the design using two TGPs connected by a graphite bridge, the temperature difference is about 7.2 °C. Finally, for the design using a single large TGP with a joint region, the temperature difference is only 1–2 °C. These results suggest that a single foldable TGP or a configuration with two TGPs outperform the graphite sheet solution for the thermal management of foldable smartphones.