Solving AI’s "Heat" Crisis: Diamond Heat Sink Plates Unleash the Ultimate Potential of AI Computing Power

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, the computing power demand for AI chips is showing an exponential growth trend. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, by the end of 2023, the total scale of in-use data center racks in China exceeded 8.1 million standard racks, with the total computing power reaching 230 EFLOPS. However, the continuous rise in the power consumption of AI chips has brought severe thermal management challenges — the power consumption of a single GPU chip has exceeded 1400W, and it is expected to surpass 2000W by 2027, with a heat flux density exceeding 1000W/cm².

Traditional air-cooled heat dissipation solutions can no longer meet the thermal management needs of high-power-density chips. Experiments show that when the chip temperature rises to 70–80℃, its performance drops by nearly 50% for every additional 10℃ increase. High temperature has become a key bottleneck restricting the development of AI applications, and it also drives the urgent demand for a new generation of heat dissipation technologies.

As the material with the best thermal conductivity in nature, diamond demonstrates unique advantages in the field of AI computing power heat dissipation:The thermal conductivity of diamond is as high as 2000–2200W/(m·K), which is 5 times that of copper and more than 8 times that of aluminum, enabling it to quickly conduct a large amount of heat generated by chips. This ultra-high thermal conductivity allows it to support a heat flux density exceeding 1000W/cm², perfectly matching the thermal management requirements of 700W+ chips.

1. AI Data Center Thermal Management Solutions

1.1 GPU Chip-Level Thermal Dissipation

In AI data centers, GPU chips are the primary heat sources. By directly integrating diamond heat sink plates into GPU chip packages, efficient chip-level thermal dissipation can be achieved. Specific solutions include:

· Diamond Substrate Integration: Bonding diamond substrates with chips shortens the heat conduction path, reducing the maximum junction temperature of chips by 24.1℃ and thermal resistance by 28.5%.

· Diamond Vapor Chamber: Depositing diamond thin films on the chip surface as a heat spreading layer to uniformly distribute heat over a larger area.

· Microchannel Cooling Cover Plate: Combining diamond substrates with microchannel structures reduces the junction temperature of GaN devices sharply from 676℃ to 182℃.

1.2 Server-Level Thermal Dissipation Systems

In response to the trend of AI server single-cabinet power consumption rising from 30kW to 100kW, diamond heat sink plates can be applied in:

· Cold Plate Liquid Cooling System: Integrating diamond heat sink plates into cold plates for direct contact with chips, improving heat dissipation efficiency by 3 times.

· Immersion Liquid Cooling: In immersion cooling liquids, diamond heat sink plates enhance heat exchange efficiency between chips and coolant, achieving stable and efficient thermal management.

· Micropump Liquid Cooling System: Adopting piezoelectric micropumps to drive coolant circulation, combined with diamond heat dissipation to build a precise and energy-saving thermal management system for high-power servers.

2. 5G Communication Base Station Thermal Management Solutions

As the power consumption of 5G base station power amplifier modules continues to increase, diamond substrates have become the core thermal management material. Application solutions include:

· Power Amplifier Module Heat Sink: Using diamond heat sink plates as the heat dissipation substrate of power amplifier modules reduces the temperature of base station chips by 30% and ensures the stability of signal transmission.

· RF Device Thermal Dissipation: Applying diamond heat sink plates to high-frequency RF switches, amplifiers and other devices significantly improves heat dissipation efficiency and operational reliability.

· Phased Array Radar Thermal Dissipation: In phased array radar systems, diamond heat sink plates can effectively solve the heat dissipation problem of multi-chip cooperative operation.

3. High-Performance Computing (HPC) Thermal Management Solutions

The CPU/GPU thermal dissipation of exascale computers is completely dependent on diamond materials. Specific applications include:

· Chip-Level Thermal Dissipation: Directly depositing diamond thin films on the surface of CPU/GPU chips to achieve ultra-low thermal resistance heat dissipation.

· Package-Level Thermal Dissipation: Integrating diamond substrates into 2.5D/3D packages to solve the heat accumulation effect caused by chip stacking.

· System-Level Thermal Dissipation: Combining microchannel liquid cooling technology to build a complete heat conduction path from chips to systems.

With its ultra-high thermal conductivity, excellent thermal properties and electrical insulation performance, diamond heat sink plates have become the ultimate solution to break through the thermal dissipation bottleneck in the field of AI computing power. As the power consumption of AI chips continues to rise and the popularization of third-generation semiconductors, diamond heat dissipation technology will usher in broader application space. In the future, with the further maturity of preparation technology and continuous cost reduction, diamond heat sink plates will play an important role in more extensive fields, providing strong thermal management support for the development of AI computing power, and driving China to achieve a leap from catching up to leading in the field of high-end thermal management materials.

CSMH uses the MPCVD method to prepare large-sized and high-quality diamonds,and currently has mature products such as diamond heat sinks, diamond wafers, diamond windows,diamond composite materials,etc.Among them,the thermal conductivity of diamond heat sinks is 1000-2200w/（m.k）, which has been applied in aerospace, high-power semiconductor lasers, optical communication, chip heat dissipation, nuclear fusion and other fields.