Patent Description:
A high power density device is a computing device that is packaged with high performance processors (e.g., such as GPU, ASIC, heterogeneous computing based IC chip or chiplet). Such high power density devices are increasingly popular due to the continuous high computing need. A high power density device tends to generate a large amount of heat and is often integrated into a server chassis. Therefore, for a high power density device to function properly, a proper thermal environment for servers, racks, and data center facility is needed.

Although liquid cooling can be a promising cooling solution for high power density devices, particular when the power budget for a single chip exceeds a threshold (e.g., 400W), the required accompanying facility can be a bottleneck, because such a liquid cooling solution has certain requirements for supply inlet temperatures, flow rates and pressures that exceed the capability of a typical data center. Even if a data center facility can be developed to meet the requirements, the cost would be too high.

Further complicating the problem is that many high performance hardware components are connected through a peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) expansion bus. A liquid cooling solution for such hardware components and packages requires completely different architecture compared to Mezzanine connector based cards.

Previous cooling solutions for the PCIE based electronics focus on desktop products, rather than on hyper scale cloud data centers. Such cooling solutions may not be feasible for integration into servers in a cloud data center. Further, these solutions may be unscalable, inversatile, not reliable enough, or too costly. In addition, most of the solutions are air cooling based, which may not satisfy the constantly increasing power density.

<CIT> provides a method and apparatus adapted to cool a circuit board in a rack-mountable housing. The method includes transferring heat from a heat source on the board to a primary heat storage medium positioned at an edge of the board or within a rack-mountable housing using at least one heat pipe, transferring heat from the primary heat storage medium to a secondary heat storage medium positioned in the rack-mountable housing through contacting surfaces of the primary and secondary heat storage mediums, transferring heat from the secondary heat storage medium to a heat exchanger, which may be positioned within the rack-mountable housing, using at least one heat pipe, and cooling the heat exchanger. A method and apparatus adapted to cool a printed circuit board includes transferring heat from a heat source on the board to a heat exchanger positioned in the rack-mountable housing using at least one heat pipe, and cooling the heat exchanger.

<CIT> provides a cooling apparatus for electronic drawers utilizing a passive fluid cooling loop in conjunction with an air cooled drawer cover. The air cooled cover provides an increased surface area from which to transfer heat to cooling air flowing through the drawer. The increased cooling surface uses available space within the drawer, which may be other than immediately adjacent to a high power device within the drawer. The passive fluid cooling loop provides heat transfer from the high power device to the air cooled cover assembly, allowing placement of the air cooled cover assembly other than immediately adjacent to the high power device. The cooling apparatus is easily disengaged from the electronics drawer, providing access to devices within the drawer.

<CIT> provides a computer module for scalably adding computing power and cooling capacity to a computer system. Computing power can be added by merely adding additional printed circuit cards to the computing module. Cooling capability is added by adding heat pipes to the computer module. The computing module for a computer includes a first heat pipe assembly. The first heat pipe assembly has an evaporator plate with an evaporator surface. The first heat pipe also has a condenser in fluid communication with the evaporator plate. The evaporator plate is positioned adjacent one side of a printed circuit board populated with at least one electronic component. The computing module may use a printed circuit board which has two sides populated with electronic components. When a printed circuit board having components on two sides is used, a second heat pipe having the same construction, namely an evaporator plate with an evaporator surface and a condenser in fluid communication with said evaporator plate, is positioned adjacent the other side of said printed circuit board so that the electronic components on the other side are positioned adjacent said evaporator surface of said second heat pipe. The evaporator plate of each heat pipe is connected to the condenser by a plurality of necked-down regions. This forms at least one window between the condenser and the evaporator plate of each heat pipe. When more than one heat pipe is used in the computing module, the windows of the various heat pipes align. Electrical connector components can be routed through the windows. The connector component connects the edge of the printed circuit board positioned near the windows. Additional building blocks, comprising one additional heat pipe and one additional populated printed circuit card can be added to further scale up or upgrade a computer system.

<CIT> provides a data center cooling system that includes a thermosiphon, an actuator coupled to the thermosiphon, and a controller. The thermosiphon includes an evaporator; a condenser; and at least one conduit coupled between the evaporator and the condenser to transport a working fluid between the evaporator and the condenser. The controller is coupled to the actuator and configured to operate the actuator to adjust a liquid level of the working fluid in the evaporator based, at least in part, on a parameter associated with a heat load of one or more data center heat generating computing devices.

A hybrid cooling device according to the present invention is defined by independent claim <NUM>.

Preferably, the hybrid cooling device further includes: a device frame, in which the radiator, the integrated channels, and the cold plate are attached to the device frame.

Preferably, the hybrid cooling device further includes: an adapting stiffener positioned between the cold plate and the electronics hardware, in which the adapting stiffener and the elastic channels operate in conjunction to maintain proper pressure on the electronics hardware.

Preferably, the elastic channel provides forces on the moving axis on both sides horizontally to properly fix the electronics hardware within the hybrid cooling device.

Preferably, the integrated channel includes a vapor line and a liquid line, the liquid line for passing liquid from the radiator to the cold plate, and the vapor line for passing vapor from the cold plate to the radiator.

Preferably, each of the one or more fans is integrated into the hybrid cooling device or a separate fan.

Preferably, the airflows created by the one or more fans pass through the cold plate through a first dedicated channel, and pass through the radiator through a second dedicated channel.

Preferably, the hybrid cooling device further includes: a temperature sensor;
a pressure sensor; in which the temperature sensor and the pressure sensor are used to control an operation of the hybrid cooling device.

A server chassis includes: the hybrid cooling device described above; and a chassis fan to provide an airflow to cool the sever chassis and the hybrid cooling device.

An electronic rack includes a plurality of the server chassis.

According to various embodiments, described herein is a hybrid cooling device and a cooling method that use a combination of phase change cooling and air cooling. The hybrid cooling device includes a closed loop two phase system, one or more fans, and an assembly clamp. The two phase system further includes a cold plate, an integrated channel, and a radiator as a condenser. The cold plate can include phase change fluid for extracting heat from electronics on a printed circuit board (PCB) sandwiched between the cold plate and the assembly clamp. The one or more fans can be used to create airflows for cooling both the electronics on the PCB and the radiator. A pressure sensor and a temperature sensor can be used to control the operation of the hybrid cooling device, which can be integrated into different system environments and server configurations.

In one embodiment, the hybrid cooling device further includes a device frame, to which the radiator, the integrated channel, and the cold plate are attached. Further, the hybrid cooling device can include an adapting stiffener positioned between the cold plate and the electronics on the PCB, and one or more elastic channels. The adapting stiffener and the one or more elastic channels operate in conjunction to maintain proper pressure on the electronics on the PCB.

In one embodiment, the hybrid cooling device further includes a moving axis in the one of the elastic channels, and one end of the assembly clamp is inserted into the elastic channels through the moving axis such that the end of the assembly clamp is moveable on the elastic channel. This elastic channel can provide forces on the moving axis on both sides horizontally to properly fix the PCB at a particular position within the hybrid cooling device.

In one embodiment, the electronics on the PCB can include one or more of a chip or a power electronics, and wherein the PCB where the electronics installed on are connected by a peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) bus to a server main PCB.

In one embodiment, the integrated channel includes a vapor line and a liquid line, the liquid line for passing liquid from the radiator to the cold plate, and the vapor line for passing vapor from the cold plate to the radiator. In one embodiment, the vapor line and liquid line may be designed in different physical dimensions for better performance.

In one embodiment, each of the one or more fans can be a fan integrated into the hybrid cooling device or a separate fan. The airflows created by the one or more fans pass through the PCB through a first dedicated channel, and pass through the radiator through a second dedicated channel.

In one embodiment, the hybrid cooling device can include a temperature sensor and a pressure sensor to control the operation of the hybrid cooling device. In one embodiment, the hybrid cooling device can include only a pressure sensor, and the pressure sensor is pre-integrated on the vapor line in the hybrid cooling device.

In one embodiment, the hybrid cooling method can be deployed to different chassis, e.g., blade servers. Further, multiple electronics on a PCB or multiple PCBs can be packaged within the hybrid cooling device. A variety of clamping methods can be used for sandwiching the PCBs.

The hybrid cooling device can be deployed in any server or chassis environment, and is compatible with different heterogeneous hardware configurations for complex and multiple heterogeneous computing workloads. As such, the hybrid cooling device is scalable and interoperable for different server system designs and configurations, including different heterogeneous hardware expansions. In addition, the solution is highly efficient since fluid is self-driven with phase change technologies.

The various embodiments provide a solution for hyperscale data centers applications and corresponding servers in a cloud environment, as well as for edge computing system, either in edge cluster or edge devices. The cooling solution described in the various embodiments can be used for cooling high power density electronics. With a complete packing method for designing hybrid cooling devices, the cooling solution can be configured for different hybrid designs such as phase change with air in parallel, phase change liquid cooling only and so on.

<FIG> show a hybrid cooling device according to one embodiment. <FIG> shows a front view of the hybrid cooling device, and <FIG> shows a side view of the hybrid cooling device.

As shown, the hybrid cooling device include a radiator <NUM>, an integrated channel <NUM>, a cold plate <NUM>, an assembly clamp <NUM>, and a device frame <NUM>. The radiator <NUM>, the integrated channel <NUM>, and the cold plate <NUM> can be combined into a single unit. The single unit constitutes the main component of the hybrid cooling device.

However, despite being a single unit, the integral designs for the three components <NUM>, <NUM> and <NUM> can be different depending on actual implementations and specific requirements of different users.

The device frame <NUM> can be a hardware frame, to which the radiator <NUM>, the integrated channel <NUM>, and the cold plate <NUM> are attached. The integrated channel <NUM> can include a liquid line and a vapor line for connecting the radiator and the cold plate. The assembly clamp <NUM>, which is described in detail below, can be used to hold electronics on a printed circuit board (PCB) with proper pressure.

<FIG> further show the hybrid cooling device according to one embodiment. <FIG> shows a front view of the hybrid cooling device, and <FIG> shows a side view of the hybrid cooling device.

As shown, the hybrid cooling device can include a fan <NUM>. The fan <NUM> and the single unit described above, provides a hybrid cooling environment for a printed circuit board (PCB) <NUM> with high power density electronics installed thereon.

In one embodiment, the PCB <NUM> be an acceleration PCB that includes multiple hardware components to speed up data communication, storage and retrieval, encryption and decryption, mathematical operations, graphics, and web page viewing, etc. The PCB <NUM> can be attached to the cold plate <NUM>. Both the radiator101 and the PCB <NUM> can be air cooled by the fan <NUM>. The solution shown in <FIG> can be understood as that the fans are integrated together as one unit. This means the fan design is optimized in terms of locations, fan selection and airflow management.

In one embodiment, the structural layout of the hybrid cooling device enables the fan <NUM> to blow direct or indirect airflows towards both the radiator 101and the electronics on the PCB <NUM>. As such, the fan <NUM> can provide direct air cooling and indirect air cooling. The fan <NUM> can be an integrated unit of the hybrid cooling device, or a separate module attached to the hybrid cooling device.

<FIG> show the hybrid cooling device combined with an PCB according to one embodiment. <FIG> illustrates an overall structure of the hybrid cooling device, and <FIG> provides additional implementation details.

In <FIG>, the PCB <NUM> can have different types of chips or power electronics installed thereon. An adapting stiffener <NUM> can be used between the cold plate <NUM> and the chips or power electronics on the PCB <NUM> to ensure that the hybrid cooling device is properly assembled. In one embodiment, the adapting stiffener <NUM> can be resilient, and can be made of elastic material to accommodate the different heights of electronics installed on the PCB <NUM>.

The hybrid cooling device further includes a connection bus <NUM> used to connect the different electronics on the PCB <NUM>. The connection bus <NUM> can be a peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) bus, which is an interface standard for connecting high-speed components.

In <FIG>, the cold portion of the hybrid cooling device can cover all electronics on the PCB <NUM> such that they all can be cooled by the cold plate <NUM>.

<FIG> illustrates the assembly clamp <NUM> in detail. The assembly clamp <NUM> includes four parts: an elastic channel <NUM>, a moving axis <NUM>, and two assembly shafts <NUM> and <NUM>. In this figure, the clamp assembly <NUM> is not locked. As shown, one end of the assembly shaft <NUM> is inserted into the elastic channel <NUM> through the moving axis <NUM>, and therefore, this end is moveable on the elastic channel <NUM>. The elastic channel <NUM> can provide forces on the moving axis <NUM> on both sides along the horizontal direction to ensure proper fixing of the hybrid cooling device in terms of the PCB <NUM>, as well as ensuring proper thermal contacting between the electronics and the stiffener.

<FIG> shows a view of the hybrid cooling device when it is locked. As shown, in addition to the elastic channel <NUM>, the hybrid cooling device can include another elastic channel <NUM> on the assembly shaft <NUM>. The two assembly shafts <NUM> and <NUM> are connected together to form the assembly clamp <NUM>.

The assembly clamp <NUM> can be locked and unlocked by turning around the moving axis <NUM>. When the assembly clamp <NUM> is locked, the PCB <NUM>, the chips <NUM> (also referred to as electronics) on the PCB <NUM>, and the adapting stiffener <NUM> can be sandwiched between the cold plate <NUM> and the assembly shaft <NUM>. Further, when the assembly clamp <NUM> is locked, the two elastic channels <NUM> and <NUM> can ensure that proper pressure be exerted on the chips <NUM> and the PCB <NUM> to avoid damages, and to prevent them from malfunctions. The elastic channels <NUM> and <NUM> can also ensure proper thermal contacting between the cold plate <NUM> and the chips <NUM>.

<FIG> show thermal management within the hybrid cooling device and a hybrid environment according to one embodiment. <FIG> shows a front view of the hybrid cooling device, and <FIG> show a front view of the hybrid cooling device.

As shown in <FIG>, the cold plate <NUM> and the radiator <NUM> are connected by a liquid line <NUM> and a vapor line <NUM>, each of which is a pipe that vapor, air, or fluid can pass through. The liquid line <NUM> and the vapor line <NUM> form the integrated channel <NUM> described in <FIG>.

In <FIG>, a phase change <NUM> can occur within the cold plate <NUM> as a result of heat being extracted from the electronics/chips on the PCB <NUM>. Fluid from the radiator <NUM> can pass through the liquid line <NUM> to the cold plate <NUM>, where the fluid changes its phase to vapor <NUM> after absorbing the heat extracted from the chips on the PCB <NUM>. The vapor carrying latent heat does not vary its temperature due to the phase change. The phase change causes a pressure increase in the cold plate <NUM>, and the increased pressure elevates the vapor to the radiator <NUM> through the vapor line <NUM>.

The radiator <NUM> can function as a condensing unit to condense the vapor elevated from the cold plate <NUM> back to liquid by extracting its latent heat from the vapor. The liquid can return to the cold plate driven by the gravity force.

<FIG> shows airflows <NUM> and <NUM> that are created by a fan, e.g., the fan <NUM> illustrated in <FIG>. The fan can create the airflows <NUM> and <NUM> either by pumping or pulling air. The fan can be on either side of the hybrid cooling device.

In one embodiment, the airflows <NUM> can pass through the radiator <NUM> to assist the radiator <NUM> in condensing vapor to liquid, and the airflows <NUM> can pass through the chips or electronics on the PCB <NUM> to provide air cooling to the chips or electronics on the PCB <NUM>. In <FIG>, the hybrid cooling device uses dedicated channels to manage and optimize the airflows <NUM> and <NUM>.

Alternatively, <FIG> shows another design for thermal management, where airflows <NUM> pass through the radiator <NUM> and the PCB <NUM> and the electronics on the PCB <NUM> in parallel since no dedicated channels for airflows <NUM> are used.

<FIG> show different airflow management within the hybrid cooling device with different fan implementations. This can be understood as how the full set of the hybrid cooling device is used and configured to create different hybrid cooling environments. <FIG> shows that the portion of inlet airflow is used for cooling the radiator to condense the vapor back to liquid and the other portion is used for cooling the other air cooled electronics on the PCB directly. The heated air is converged to the dedicated channel driven by the fan. While in <FIG>, the two portions of airflows form separate paths.

<FIG> show an overall system level use of the hybrid cooling device according to one embodiment. The figures show that a hybrid cooling device <NUM> can be integrated into a server chassis <NUM>, where the hybrid cooling device <NUM> can adapt to the environment of the server chassis <NUM> and take advantage of the existing server chassis environment and structure.

In <FIG>, the hybrid cooling device <NUM> includes a phase change cooling portion that occurs in a cold plate <NUM> and a dedicated fan <NUM> for cooling an acceleration PCB <NUM> and electronics installed thereon. The dedicated fan <NUM> can be a cross flow fan, and can be used to assist in generating the airflows shown in <FIG>.

As further shown, the server chassis <NUM> can include a server PCB <NUM> and a chassis fan <NUM> mounted on the right side of the hybrid cooling device <NUM>. The chassis fan <NUM>, as part of the existing server chassis structure, can function as the primary air mover. Thus, the hybrid cooling device <NUM> can take advantage of the existing server chassis structure.

In <FIG>, an additional fan <NUM> is integrated into the hybrid cooling device <NUM> for enhancing airflows. The additional fan <NUM> can be used for redundancy since the server chassis <NUM> may not be dedicated for the acceleration PCB <NUM>. The additional fan <NUM> can further enhance system performance.

<FIG> shows the hybrid cooling device as described in <FIG> being deployed in a server chassis according to one embodiment.

In this embodiment, unlike the embodiments illustrated in <FIG>, the hybrid cooling device <NUM> is fully disaggregated from the server chassis <NUM> in terms of airflow management, which means that no server fan is needed.

In the various embodiments described above, the hybrid cooling device in <FIG> and <FIG> can be reconfigured by adding additional features to take advantage of the environment in the server chassis <NUM>.

<FIG> show how the hybrid cooling device is controlled according to one embodiment.

As shown, the hybrid cooling device can include two sensors. A pressure sensor <NUM> can be attached to the vapor line <NUM> to measure the pressure of the vapor passing through the vapor line <NUM>. A temperature sensor <NUM> can be provided in the cold plate to measure the temperature of the cold plate. These two sensors <NUM> and <NUM> are decoupled from any of the electronics on the PCB <NUM>. The decoupling can significantly increase the adaptability and reliability of the cooling solution. In one embodiment, the temperature sensor can be a sensor in the chip package, such as a sensor for measuring the case temperatures. In this case, only the pressure is needed on the hybrid cooling device for the purpose of controlling the operation of the hybrid cooling device.

In one embodiment, the two sensors <NUM> and <NUM> are used for controlling the fan or fans of the hybrid cooling device only, and the device control applies to only the hardware of the device, and does not apply to the PCBs <NUM> and <NUM> and the electronics on the two PCBs. Such a design can increase the hybrid cooling device's deployability, tunability, and interoperability. The design aims to simplify the system integration and tuning procedures, which means plug and play.

<FIG> is a flow diagram illustrating a control flow process <NUM> for the hybrid cooling device according to one embodiment.

As shown in <FIG>, a temperature sensor and a pressure sensor are used for controlling the operation of the hybrid cooling device, which includes a main fan and a secondary fan. The flow control process <NUM> may be performed by processing logic which may include software, hardware, or a combination thereof.

In operation <NUM>, the processing logic initiates the temperature sensor to measure the temperature inside the cold plate in the hybrid cooling device, and initiates the pressure sensor to measure the pressure of the vapor passing through the vapor line.

In operation <NUM>, the processing logic determines whether the measured temperature is under a predetermined threshold (i.e., Tcase-design).

In operation <NUM>, if the measured temperature is not under the predetermined threshold, the processing logic can send commands to run the main fan in the hybrid cooling device to its maximum speed.

In operation <NUM>, the processing logic determines whether the measured temperature has decreased under the predetermined threshold due to the blowing of the main fan at its maximum speed.

In operation <NUM>, the measured temperature has decreased under the threshold hold. The processing logic continues monitoring the temperature, and also uses the measured pressure to control the operation of the hybrid cooling device.

In operation <NUM>, the measured temperature has not decreased under the threshold hold, and the processing logic runs the secondary fan to its maximum speed.

In operation <NUM>, the processing logic determines whether the measures pressure has increased.

In operation <NUM>, the processing logic determines that the measured pressure has not increased and accordingly decreases the speed of the main fan.

In operation <NUM>, the processing logic determines that the measured pressure has increased, and accordingly increases the speed of the main fan if the main fan is not running at its maximum speed.

In operation <NUM>, the processing logic determines whether the measured temperature exceeds the predetermined threshold. If so, the processing logic will monitor the measured temperature to determine if it decreases under the predetermined threshold; otherwise, the processing logic will check if the measured pressure has increased.

<FIG> illustrates a method <NUM> of cooling a heterogeneous computing architecture according to one embodiment.

As shown in <FIG>, in block <NUM>, a phase change system that includes a cold plate, a radiator, and an integrated channel connecting the cold plate and the radiator. In block <NUM>, an assembly clamp is provided to position electronic hardware to be cooled between the assembly clamp and the cold plate. In block <NUM>, one or more fans are provided. The fans can be integrated with the cold plate and the radiator or can be separate fans. In block <NUM>, the phase change system is used to cool the electronics hardware, and the airflows created by the one or more fans are used to cool the radiator and the electronic hardware.

<FIG> is block diagram illustrating an electronic rack according to one embodiment. Electronic rack <NUM> may represent any of the electronic racks of a data center. Referring to <FIG>, according to one embodiment, electronic rack <NUM> includes, but is not limited to, CDU <NUM>, rack management unit (RMU) <NUM>, and one or more server chassis 1003A-1003E (collectively referred to as server chassis <NUM>). Server chassis <NUM> can be inserted into an array of server slots (e.g., standard shelves) respectively from frontend <NUM> or backend <NUM> of electronic rack <NUM>. Note that although there are five server chassis 1003A-1003E shown here, more or fewer server chassis may be maintained within electronic rack <NUM>. Also note that the particular positions of CDU <NUM>, RMU <NUM>, and/or server chassis <NUM> are shown for the purpose of illustration only; other arrangements or configurations of CDU <NUM>, RMU <NUM>, and/or server chassis <NUM> may also be implemented. In one embodiment, electronic rack <NUM> can be either open to the environment or partially contained by a rack container, as long as the cooling fans can generate airflows from the frontend to the backend.

In addition, for at least some of the server chassis <NUM>, an optional fan module (not shown) is associated with the server chassis. Each of the fan modules includes one or more cooling fans. The fan modules may be mounted on the backends of server chassis <NUM> or on the electronic rack to generate airflows flowing from frontend <NUM>, traveling through the air space of the sever chassis <NUM>, and existing at backend <NUM> of electronic rack <NUM>.

In one embodiment, CDU <NUM> mainly includes heat exchanger <NUM>, liquid pump <NUM>, and a pump controller (not shown), and some other components such as a liquid reservoir, a power supply, monitoring sensors and so on. Heat exchanger <NUM> may be a liquid-to-liquid heat exchanger. Heat exchanger <NUM> includes a first loop with inlet and outlet ports having a first pair of liquid connectors coupled to external liquid supply/return lines <NUM>-<NUM> to form a primary loop. The connectors coupled to the external liquid supply/return lines <NUM>-<NUM> may be disposed or mounted on backend <NUM> of electronic rack <NUM>. The liquid supply/return lines <NUM>-<NUM>, also referred to as room liquid supply/return lines, may be coupled to an external cooling system (e.g., a data center room cooling system).

In addition, heat exchanger <NUM> further includes a second loop with two ports having a second pair of liquid connectors coupled to liquid manifold <NUM> (also referred to as a rack manifold) to form a secondary loop, which may include a supply manifold (also referred to as a rack liquid supply line or rack supply manifold) to supply cooling liquid to server chassis <NUM> and a return manifold (also referred to as a rack liquid return line or rack return manifold) to return warmer liquid back to CDU <NUM>. Note that CDUs <NUM> can be any kind of CDUs commercially available or customized ones. Thus, the details of CDUs <NUM> will not be described herein.

Each of server chassis <NUM> may include one or more IT components (e.g., central processing units or CPUs, general/graphic processing units (GPUs), memory, and/or storage devices). Each IT component may perform data processing tasks, where the IT component may include software installed in a storage device, loaded into the memory, and executed by one or more processors to perform the data processing tasks. Server chassis <NUM> may include a host server (referred to as a host node) coupled to one or more compute servers (also referred to as computing nodes, such as CPU server and GPU server). The host server (having one or more CPUs) typically interfaces with clients over a network (e.g., Internet) to receive a request for a particular service such as storage services (e.g., cloud-based storage services such as backup and/or restoration), executing an application to perform certain operations (e.g., image processing, deep data learning algorithms or modeling, etc., as a part of a software-as-a-service or SaaS platform). In response to the request, the host server distributes the tasks to one or more of the computing nodes or compute servers (having one or more GPUs) managed by the host server. The compute servers perform the actual tasks, which may generate heat during the operations.

Electronic rack <NUM> further includes optional RMU <NUM> configured to provide and manage power supplied to servers <NUM>, and CDU <NUM>. RMU <NUM> may be coupled to a power supply unit (not shown) to manage the power consumption of the power supply unit. The power supply unit may include the necessary circuitry (e.g., an alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) or DC to AC power converter, battery, transformer, or regulator, etc.,) to provide power to the rest of the components of electronic rack <NUM>.

In one embodiment, RMU <NUM> includes optimization module <NUM> and rack management controller (RMC) <NUM>. RMC <NUM> may include a monitor to monitor operating status of various components within electronic rack <NUM>, such as, for example, computing nodes <NUM>, CDU <NUM>, and the fan modules. Specifically, the monitor receives operating data from various sensors representing the operating environments of electronic rack <NUM>. For example, the monitor may receive operating data representing temperatures of the processors, cooling liquid, and airflows, which may be captured and collected via various temperature sensors. The monitor may also receive data representing the fan power and pump power generated by the fan modules and liquid pump <NUM>, which may be proportional to their respective speeds. These operating data are referred to as real-time operating data. Note that the monitor may be implemented as a separate module within RMU <NUM>.

Based on the operating data, optimization module <NUM> performs an optimization using a predetermined optimization function or optimization model to derive a set of optimal fan speeds for the fan modules and an optimal pump speed for liquid pump <NUM>, such that the total power consumption of liquid pump <NUM> and the fan modules reaches minimum, while the operating data associated with liquid pump <NUM> and cooling fans of the fan modules are within their respective designed specifications. Once the optimal pump speed and optimal fan speeds have been determined, RMC <NUM> configures liquid pump <NUM> and cooling fans of the fan modules based on the optimal pump speeds and fan speeds.

As an example, based on the optimal pump speed, RMC <NUM> communicates with a pump controller of CDU <NUM> to control the speed of liquid pump <NUM>, which in turn controls a liquid flow rate of cooling liquid supplied to the liquid manifold <NUM> to be distributed to at least some of server chassis <NUM>. Similarly, based on the optimal fan speeds, RMC <NUM> communicates with each of the fan modules to control the speed of each cooling fan of the fan modules, which in turn control the airflow rates of the fan modules. Note that each of fan modules may be individually controlled with its specific optimal fan speed, and different fan modules and/or different cooling fans within the same fan module may have different optimal fan speeds.

Note that the rack configuration as shown in <FIG> is shown and described for the purpose of illustration only; other configurations or arrangements may also be applicable. For example, CDU <NUM> may be an optional unit. The cold plates of server chassis <NUM> may be coupled to a rack manifold, which may be directly coupled to room manifolds <NUM>-<NUM> without using a CDU. Although not shown, a power supply unit may be disposed within electronic rack <NUM>. The power supply unit may be implemented as a standard chassis identical or similar to a sever chassis, where the power supply chassis can be inserted into any of the standard shelves, replacing any of server chassis <NUM>. In addition, the power supply chassis may further include a battery backup unit (BBU) to provide battery power to server chassis <NUM> when the main power is unavailable. The BBU may include one or more battery packages and each battery package include one or more battery cells, as well as the necessary charging and discharging circuits for charging and discharging the battery cells.

In one embodiment, the cooling devices disposed in each of the server chassis as shown may represent any cooling device described throughout this application.

In the foregoing specification, embodiments of the disclosure have been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will be evident that various modifications may be made thereto without departing from the scope of the disclosure as set forth in the following claims. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than a restrictive sense.

As previously explained, an embodiment of the disclosure may be (or include) a non-transitory machine-readable medium (such as microelectronic memory) having stored thereon instructions, which program one or more data processing components (generically referred to here as a "processor") to perform airflow management operations, such as controlling fan speed of one or more fans of the battery module (and/or BBU shelf). In other embodiments, some of these operations might be performed by specific hardware components that contain hardwired logic. Those operations might alternatively be performed by any combination of programmed data processing components and fixed hardwired circuit components of any of the battery modules described herein.

While certain aspects have been described and shown in the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that such aspects are merely illustrative of and not restrictive on the broad disclosure, and that the disclosure is not limited to the specific constructions and arrangements shown and described, since various other modifications may occur to those of ordinary skill in the art. The description is thus to be regarded as illustrative instead of limiting.

Claim 1:
A hybrid cooling device, comprising:
a phase change system that includes a cold plate (<NUM>), a radiator (<NUM>), and an integrated channel (<NUM>) connecting the cold plate (<NUM>) and the radiator (<NUM>);
an assembly clamp (<NUM>) to position electronic hardware to be cooled between the assembly clamp (<NUM>) and the cold plate (<NUM>), wherein the radiator (<NUM>) is positioned above the cold plate (<NUM>), and wherein the cold plate (<NUM>) is positioned vertically to be attached to the electronic hardware when the assembly clamp (<NUM>) clamps onto the cold plate (<NUM>), such that the radiator (<NUM>) functions as a condensing unit to condense the vapor elevated from the cold plate (<NUM>) back to liquid by extracting its latent heat from the vapor such that the liquid returns to the cold plate driven by the gravity force; a peripheral bus; and
one or more fans (<NUM>) to provide air cooling the radiator (<NUM>) and the electronic hardware, wherein the electronic hardware includes a printed circuit board (<NUM>) and an electronic device packaged thereon, the electronic device including one or more of a chip or a power electronic, and the electronic device being an integrated peripheral device packaged on the printed circuit board (<NUM>) is connectable to the peripheral bus,
wherein the assembly clamp (<NUM>) comprises an elastic channel (<NUM>), a moving axis (<NUM>), and two assembly shafts (<NUM>) and (<NUM>);
wherein the two assembly shafts (<NUM>) and (<NUM>) are connected together; and
wherein one end of the assembly shaft (<NUM>) is inserted into the elastic channel (<NUM>) through the moving axis (<NUM>) and is moveable in the elastic channel (<NUM>).