System for automatically classifying electrical devices for fan control application

#The present disclosure relates generally to cooling systems for electronic devices, and more specifically to a system to regulate fan power based on the type of components in an electronic device.

#Electronic devices such as servers include electronic components that are connected to a power supply unit. Servers generate an enormous amount of heat due to the operation of internal electronic components such as controllers, processors, LAN cards, hard disk drives, and solid state disk drives. Overheating from the inefficient removal of such heat has the potential to shut down or impede the operation of such devices. Thus, servers are designed to rely on air flow through the interior of the device to carry away heat generated from electronic components. Servers often include various heat sinks that are attached to the electronic components such as processing units. Heat sinks are typically composed of thermally conductive material. Heat sinks absorb the heat from the electronic components, thus transferring the heat away from the components. The heat from heat sinks must be vented away from the server. Airflow to vent away such heat is often generated by a fan system that accelerates airflow through the components and the heat sink. The generated airflow thus carries collected heat away from the components and the heat sink.

#In devices such as servers, the system power is limited by the thermal design for cooling such components. Thus, the operating velocity of such devices is constrained by the thermal design, as components must sometimes be run at lower velocities so they don't overheat. By the principles of energy conversion, the power limitation of a fan cooled device is proportional to the air quantity flowing through the device. The greater the air quantity, the more air flow is available for cooling, and therefore the performance of the system may be increased. High system power allows for higher power to be distributed to components, such as a CPU, thereby resulting in increased calculation speed. Of course, greater air flow requires greater fan power and therefore increases power requirements of the device. Various types of fans are used to provide adequate cooling, and different fan control mechanisms balance the cooling capacity and generated noise.

#The disclosure will be better understood from the following description of exemplary embodiments together with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

#FIG. 1A is a perspective view of the electronic components of an example device such as a server;

#FIG. 1B is a block diagram of electronic components on the server in FIG. 1A that have different cooling requirements;

#The present disclosure is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms. Some representative embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and will be described in detail herein. It should be understood, however, that the invention is not intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed. Rather, the disclosure is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

#The present inventions can be embodied in many different forms. Representative embodiments are shown in the drawings, and will herein be described in detail. The present disclosure is an example or illustration of the principles of the present disclosure, and is not intended to limit the broad aspects of the disclosure to the embodiments illustrated. To that extent, elements, and limitations that are disclosed, for example, in the Abstract, Summary, and Detailed Description sections, but not explicitly set forth in the claims, should not be incorporated into the claims, singly or collectively, by implication, inference, or otherwise. For purposes of the present detailed description, unless specifically disclaimed, the singular includes the plural and vice versa; and the word “including” means “including without limitation.” Moreover, words of approximation, such as “about,” “almost,” “substantially,” “approximately,” and the like, can be used herein to mean “at,” “near,” or “nearly at,” or “within 3-5% of,” or “within acceptable manufacturing tolerances,” or any logical combination thereof, for example.

#FIG. 1A is a block diagram of an example network device such as a server 100. The server 100 includes power supply units 110 and fans 112. The power supply units 110 supply electrical power to different electronic components on the server 100. The server 100 includes numerous electronic components that are mounted on a motherboard 114. The electronic components generate heat when powered on. The electronic components each have separate thermal cooling requirements to maintain operation. In this example, the electronic components include processors 120. Other components include a hard disk drive (HDD) 126, and a solid state disk drive (SSD) 128. The server 100 includes device sockets for additional integrated circuits and slots for the insertion of circuit cards. Each such inserted component also generates heat and requires cooling to operate. In this example, other inserted components include a series of Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIE) circuit cards 130 and a series of Open Compute Project (OCP) circuit cards 132 that are inserted in a respective slot. Optional devices such as a FPGA or a LAN card may be inserted in other device sockets. A series of DIMM memory devices 136 are also provided in sockets in proximity to the processors 120.