Reading time 7 mins
Reading time 7 mins
As teams throughout Google know very well, thermal management—a small, silent, vital enabler to network infrastructure—significantly affects network operational performance. That’s because electronic components get hot—a problem exacerbated by heightened network demands for improved reliability, higher power density, and speed.
Thermal management has been limited by conventional thermal interface materials (TIMs) and traditional active-cooling methods. Google has made great strides in advances in thermal management already, but additional benefits can be achieved by using it effectively in hardware components such as circuit boards in active antenna units (AAUs) and line cards for routers and switches. Thermal management can help Google data centers, fiber-optics tech, and telecom operators to reach their target network performance metrics and to enable emerging technologies such as 5G, Wi-Fi 6, and supporting 400 GbE speeds.
Perhaps it seems counterintuitive to start optimization at the integrated circuit level. However, Google infrastructures spanning Google Cloud, Google Fiber, Google Fi, Google Home, Android devices, and more use components in mass quantities. One small uptick in thermal management at the integrated circuit level can create colossal, in-aggregate improvements.
Few materials master heat dissipation, but all networks need it. In router, switch, and circuit board design, effective thermal management is a notable competitive differentiator. Advanced thermal management materials include thermal gels, phase change materials, thermal GAP PAD® materials, and thin-film thermally conductive, dielectric coatings.
This paper explains how operators and technologists throughout the Google family of companies can elevate network outcomes by improving thermal management at the electronic component level—and why it matters.
The heat is on for data center and telecom operations. As Google knows, global demand for data, internet access, and bandwidth is skyrocketing. Network infrastructure spending has escalated to respond to the worldwide need.
One vital linchpin holds the key to enabling expansion: thermal management. Networks need to operate integrated circuits at maximum processing power without overheating. Google recognizes this and has made strides with warm data centers greatly reducing the energy requirements, but progress cannot stop there. As speed and component densities increase, so does the heat generated within those integrated circuits. Although active cooling assists with heat dissipation, it is expensive—and is reaching its limit.
New technology innovations Google is helping to move forward—among them, 5G, Wi-Fi 6, and 400 GbE data transmission rates—are dramatically increasing processing speeds, further elevating thermal management’s importance as the gateway to future expansion.
Google data centers rely on enormous scale and size to provide massive computing power. For example, most large data centers have around 100,000 servers; hyperscale data centers can have many more. While Google was able to make dramatic improvements to power usage effectiveness (PUE) across data centers from 1.23 down to 1.12 between 2008 and 2013, reduction of PUE between 2013 and 2022 was more gradual: from 1.12 to 1.10. Escalation of progress will take new approaches.
The limiting factor to network size and operations is either power or cooling, both of which also represent a significant percentage of operating expense (OpEx).
It makes sense to minimize the aggregate heat generated by all that hardware. Thermal management is the gateway to future expansion, in part because of its domino effect on network performance. When it’s successful, thermal management helps to maximize network performance, boost reliability, and enhance component life.
As a result, many electronic component manufacturers, including Google, are motivated to improve thermal management at the source: the network infrastructure level within integrated circuits.
Akin to a powerful lever, the multiplier effect of a small heat dissipation improvement in the circuit boards comprising routers, switches, servers, and AAUs adds up to big outcomes. Thus, thermal management materials help to minimize the aggregate heat generated at the network infrastructure level. Among them: circuit boards, line cards for routers and switches, and printed circuit boards (PCBs). The PCBs often are used in AAUs and baseband units (BBUs, sometimes called active band units, or ABUs).
As electronic devices become more powerful, they generate more heat. Thermal management materials play a pivotal role in network performance and mitigate risks of system reliability drops, product failures, and degradation over time. The good news for Google across data centers and the countless other Google offerings that demand thermal management is that it is possible to address these challenges with these exceptional thermal management materials—such as thermal gels, thermal GAP PAD® materials, phase change materials, and microTIMs—that are used in construction of the micro-sized electronic components.
Challenged by heightening demands for increasing reliability, density, processing power, and speed, thermal management is the pathway to key Google businesses like data centers and telecom/fiber performance, enabling 5G, Wi-Fi 6, 400 GbE data transmission rates, and other emerging innovations.
Heat accelerates a component’s performance degradation and reduces its lifespan. Google has seen what can happen, having experienced a cooling-related failure July 19, 2022 at a London data center on the day when the UK experienced a record-breaking temperature of more than 40° C (104° F).
Electronic components are composed of semiconducting, conducting, and non-conducting materials. For any of them, the general rule of thumb is that the speed of chemical reactions doubles for each increase of 10° C. Electronic components need to be maintained at stable temperatures; otherwise, chemical reactions can break down or alter their materials.
Physical degradation can also occur. Thermal or power cycling can warp components when overheating occurs, such as when they run at maximum temperatures for extended periods of time.
This isn’t a minor matter. Google data center and telecom trends underscore thermal management’s crucial role.
Cloud hyperscale data centers and their colossal computing power capabilities are working to meet the rising demands for data volume and speed. In spite of economic turmoil, the world’s largest data center operators—Google, along with Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft—are leading the way in data center spending that’s expected to reach $222 billion in 2023. And the demand keeps rising. According to a 2023 Gitnux report, “global internet traffic is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 24% between 2021 and 2026,” propelling investment and expenditures in data center networking to epic levels.
Data center OpEx, however, has reached a critical juncture, primarily due to cooling and power costs. According to Cushman & Wakefield’s 2023 Global Data Center Market Comparison, data center power demand increased from 4.9 GW to an estimated 7.4 GW in one year. With an average of 40% of data center power going to cooling costs, thermal management has to be top of mind.
These cooling challenges make data center costs a boardroom issue and are spurring the shift from private server solutions to cloud-based services via hyperscale data centers. While this shift drives more business toward resources like Google Cloud, it also impacts Google issues around costs, infrastructure, and sustainability.
These cooling challenges make data center costs a boardroom issue and are spurring the shift from private server solutions to cloud-based services via hyperscale data centers. While this shift drives more business toward resources like Google Cloud, it also impacts Google issues around costs, infrastructure, and sustainability.
These cooling challenges make data center costs a boardroom issue and are spurring the shift from private server solutions to cloud-based services via hyperscale data centers. While this shift drives more business toward resources like Google Cloud, it also impacts Google issues around costs, infrastructure, and sustainability.
The takeaway: Data center OpEx threatens Google profitability. Given that thermal management can help maximize data center output while minimizing OpEx, it’s worth investigating.
These changes aren’t only in the data center. Concurrently, telecom infrastructure—including Google Fiber and Google Fi—is growing rapidly. The telecom tower market was valued at $56.94 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach $189.05 billion by 2030. To fuel this growth, telecom operators are focused on controlling both capital expenditures (CapEx) and OpEx. According to a PwC survey, telecom operators indicate that up to 20%, or $65 billion, per year in CapEx is wasted due to under-optimized CapEx.
OpEx is also an ongoing challenge for telecom and fiber-optics infrastructure. Mobile base stations, cell towers, multiplexers, and distribution nodes are always-on equipment, and they generate rising levels of heat. Temperature and humidity fluctuations in outdoor environments are further burdens on remote telecom equipment that is equipped with limited active-cooling options.
*Statista, “Data volume of global consumer IP traffic from 2017 to 2022,” November 30, 2022
Heat generated on the printed circuit boards used in these systems can degrade equipment performance and reduce lifecycles. Because it costs so much to access and repair telecom and fiber infrastructure, telecom operators need electronic components with maximum longevity and reliability. The operational target is near-zero failures and minimal maintenance. Telecom and fiber components can help achieve this goal by relying heavily on effective thermal management, using advanced materials applied to the printed circuit boards that power AAUs and BBUs.
Everything is moving faster. Areas of interest for Google, including 5G, Wi-Fi 6, and 400 GbE data transmission rates, increase the need for effective thermal management in integrated circuits. Electronic components must respond to speed and component requirements and all the other demands that enable our global always-on connectivity.
5G has 10 times faster data processing speeds than 4G.
GbPS
Wi-Fi 6 has the capacity for 9.6 Gbps, compared to 3.5 Gbps for Wi-Fi 5.
400 GbE data transmission rates are four times the speed of today’s 100 GbE.
For Google to keep up and move forward in these areas, thermal management capabilities must increase concurrently.
The higher processing density on integrated circuits generates more heat. As Google has seen firsthand, active-cooling options do help, but they are expensive, they are reaching their physical limitations, and they have adverse sustainability implications. Given the colossal scale of network infrastructure, thermal management is a matter of intense significance.
Hyperscale data centers enabled an unprecedented evolution of cloud computing. In 2022, an estimated 57% of businesses migrated their workloads to the cloud across all industries. To keep pace with this demand and the heat dissipation it requires, the data center cooling market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.1% from 2023 to 2030 as the public cloud computing market balloons to $1 trillion. Advanced materials help tackle the operational challenge of heat dissipation with small, incremental improvements in thermal management. For a major participant in data centers like Google, this adds up to a substantial outcome.
Another factor impacting thermal management is higher processing densities. Not long ago, racks with line cards in data centers handled around 100 GbE per pluggable optical module (POM). Since then, this number has quadrupled to 400 GbE speeds without any increase in rack size. And now it’s heading toward 800 GbE. More processing is required per board, and that elevates the heat generated in Google’s electronic components.
Aggregate impact: what 5° c means in data centers
Can 5° C really make a difference to Google? With the transition to 400 GbE-capable modules, the power level per POM—which number as many as 32 per line card—can reach as high as 15 watts. Alternatively, advanced, innovative microTIMs enable more heat to dissipate from the module, which reduces operational temperature at a rate of 0.33° C per watt. For a 15-watt module, temperature reduction is upwards of 5° C, which is significant in aggregate across the line card.
Telecom operators like Google Fi face a growing energy challenge, too, which puts more emphasis on innovative thermal management. According to industry estimates, as 5G replaces 4G, each telecom site will require two to three times more power. On average, energy costs account for 5-7% of OpEx. These rising costs squeeze margins and limit the growth potential of on-site active-cooling options, making thermal management a vital determinant for effective telecom operations.
Telecom operators like Google Fi face a growing energy challenge, too, which puts more emphasis on innovative thermal management. According to industry estimates, as 5G replaces 4G, each telecom site will require two to three times more power. On average, energy costs account for 5-7% of OpEx. These rising costs squeeze margins and limit the growth potential of on-site active-cooling options, making thermal management a vital determinant for effective telecom operations.
The heat is on for data center and telecom operations. As Google knows, global demand for data, internet access, and bandwidth is skyrocketing. Network infrastructure spending has escalated to respond to the worldwide need.
It all starts with the circuit board, the primary source of heat generation. Circuit boards may use several thermal management materials, which in turn power a router, switch, server, AAU, or BBU. To better understand how to use thermal management, let’s look at each of these robust heat-dissipating materials.
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Advanced materials help Google with thermal management at the electronic component level to drive improved outcomes at the data center, telecom, and fiber network levels.
CARCINOGENIC
H350 May cause cancer.
H351 Suspected of causing cancer.
H362 May cause harm to breastfed children.
MUTAGENIC
H340 May cause genetic defects.
H341 Suspected of causing genetic defects.
H362 May cause harm to breastfed children.
REPRODUCTIVE
H360 May damage fertility or the unborn child.
H361 Suspected of damaging fertility or the unborn child.
H362 May cause harm to breastfed children.
Rising demand for data, internet access, and bandwidth has increased the need for thermal management. This presents both challenges and opportunities for Google. Advanced, innovative component materials provide next-level thermal management that can help Google reach its goals of improved reliability, performance, and cost management. They are the gateway to 5G, Wi-Fi 6, 400 GbE data transmission rates, and beyond.
Selecting the right materials for routers, switches, and circuit boards is essential for data center, telecom, and fiber network performance. We invite you to align with an innovative, advanced materials partner to source and, in some cases, co-innovate material development. Henkel stands ready to work with you toward that goal.