Vapor Chamber: Stamped vs Tube Manufacturing Process

Two methods for vapor chamber manufacturing offer unique advantages to thermal engineers.

2-Piece Stamped Vapor Chambers

The first and most common type, by a long shot, is manufactured using a 2-part stamped enclosure (top and bottom) that offers the following advantages:

• High degree of flexibility in shape only tempered by the inherent limitations of the metal stamping process.

• Easily incorporated design features such as through-holes and embossed pedestals.
• High degree of flexibility of wick design within a single device: varying wick thickness, wick porosity, and wick shape.
• Easily accessible in the market.

Disadvantages include the inability to bend post-production, longer lead times, and higher cost.

1-Piece Tube Vapor Chambers

One-piece vapor chambers (see how it’s made) begin the production process as a very large single tube (1-piece of =< 70mm tube). Advantages include:

• Lower cost relative to 2-piece vapor chamber designs yet still allowing higher performance than multi-heat pipe solutions for near cost parity.

• Quicker time to prototype as the production process is simpler.

• Ability to bend the device, post-production, in L and U-shapes to increase design options versus a traditional two-piece design.

• These vapor chambers can be as wide as 110mm and offer a width-to-height ratio of 30:1, far exceeding the 4:1 ratio of flattened heat pipes.

One-piece designs are disadvantaged because they are limited to rectangular shapes and offer less wick variation within a single device.?

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