Digital Systems must maintain a Thermal Design Power (TDP) requirement per chip, else chip reliability may be drastically reduced, ultimately resulting in a failure? Currently, the TDP requirement can be maintained, if heat energy can be removed faster than power, energy is added.
Vapor Chamber:
(1) Vapor Chamber is a heat accumulator, exchanger that limits the maximum temperature based on the vapor phase change of the enclosed liquid and/or vapor.
(2) A Vapor Chamber performs slightly better than common heat exchangers due to the absorption of the phase change.
(3) Once, the phase change temperature is reached, then the vapor changer absorbs even more heat energy without increasing the temperature, until a thermal saturation point is reached.
Heat Exchanger:
(1) A heat exchanger provides a low thermal resistance typically to an air-cooled, or liquid-cooled fins.
(2) Heat exchangers may incorporate a complex flow from the attached device, requiring more mechanical engineering.
(3) Heat exchangers do not posses a phase change temperature, that can absorb heat energy at the phase change temperature.
Both Heat Exchangers and Vapor Chambers improve overall TDP performance, however, Vapor Chambers are potentially less expensive, relative to their effectiveness. There is a lot of research relative to phase change vapor changers.