Development speed is everything in the global electrification race. Last year, the CooliBlade design team quietly set a new benchmark for development speed by delivering over 20 unique thermal concepts to the world’s leading industrial customers.
These were not standard off-the-shelf solutions but tailored to each customer’s specifications. CooliBlade’s innovative solutions are built on our modular components, enabling fast, easy customization. CooliBlade’s thermal management solutions are designed for the most demanding applications in AC drives, battery energy storage systems (BESS), and renewable energy. How did we achieve this level of innovation? The answer lies in our unique simulation-based design process, a workflow built to eliminate the “trial and error” phase of product development.
First-Time-Right Design: Why 1% Simulation Accuracy Saves You Months
The traditional development process includes several stages that are critical to performance and design schedules. If thermal simulation is not considered early enough, there is a high risk of significant challenges during prototype development and schedule delays. A typical challenge is that, without a reliable thermal model during the design and construction of the prototype, overheating is only detected during testing, and the design must be restarted from scratch.
Image: Simulation examples.
We have inverted this process at the CooliBlade. We don't build until we know. Our Quick Design and Prototyping Process uses advanced thermal simulation tools to model complex heat transfer scenarios with exceptional precision. We can take a customer’s preliminary specifications and virtually verify the thermal feasibility of a concept. What sets our process apart is the strong correlation between our digital models and the physical world. Through rigorous validation in our in-house test laboratory, we have tuned our simulation parameters to achieve results that match real-world measurements within 1 Kelvin.
This precision transforms the development cycle:
- Innovation: High-power electronics often face tight packaging constraints, where traditional coolers struggle to fit or perform effectively. Our NEOcore technology differs from standard heat sinks and heat pipes, and we have created thermal structures that solve these difficult space-vs-performance puzzles. Our simulation process is iterative and enables optimization of the thermal management solution's performance and cost.
- Speed: We can iterate on multiple design variations in parallel and proceed to prototyping only after the thermal model is fully optimized. Our thermal simulation models are based on our ULTIMA or AURORA product platforms, making the creation of customized concepts one of our most important competitive advantages.
- Reliability: We have developed parameters for thermal simulation models over several years. We can integrate customer chip models into thermal models and optimize heat sink structures across different power classes. We can also model airflow to optimize back pressure and fan size. Thermal models have been developed for both free- and forced-convection solutions. The accuracy is typically within 1 Kelvin.
CooliBlade’s measurement laboratory is a key part of our design process
An important competitive advantage of CooliBlade is its unique measurement laboratory for validating prototype performance. We can measure prototype performance across a range of power levels and airflow conditions in our high-quality testing laboratory. The laboratory measurement system records all critical measurement points, and the data help further develop our simulation models. In addition to our own measurements, CooliBlade collaborates with external partners on reliability and environmental measurements to ensure the high quality of our products.
A transparent and efficient innovation and development process lowers costs.
The CooliBlade development process is highly transparent and efficient. It consists of several well-defined phases that create clear stage-gate points to monitor progress. In the first phase, we review the customer's specifications and understand their expectations. Based on this, we outline the concept and create a thermal simulation model. Typically, at this stage, we run a few parametric iterations to ensure optimal performance. Once the virtual prototype meets or exceeds customer targets, we finalize the design, develop the mechanical design, order the parts, and assemble a sufficient number of prototypes. Finally, we test the prototypes in our laboratory and send them to the customer for their own measurements.
CooliBlade’s efficient design process at the concept stage enables us to significantly reduce our customers’ development costs and accelerate their development schedules. Efficient, reliable thermal modeling reduces the need to build physical prototypes, and we can optimize the performance and price of the thermal management solution during the design process. By combining agile virtual-prototyping models with hard data from our test labs, we ensure that the next generation of power electronics stays cool and reliable, and that our solutions are ahead of competitors. The collaboration with CooliBlade enables our customers to gain a significant competitive advantage amid increasingly intense competition and upcoming thermal management challenges.