Eliminate Welding Porosity and Thin-wall Burn-through, Boosting Mass-production Yield of Chip Liquid-cooling Plates

12 Nov,2026

Eliminate Welding Porosity and Thin-wall Burn-through, Boosting Mass-production Yield of Chip Liquid-cooling Plates

Lead-in: As chip heat dissipation demands keep rising, liquid cooling has become the mainstream solution for high-computing-power scenarios. The weld sealing integrity and forming stability of liquid-cooling plates are critical to the long-term reliability of the cooling system. Copper, aluminum, stainless steel and other substrates differ greatly in welding characteristics, and pain points such as porosity, deformation and burn-through constrain mass-production yield. Xinghong Optoelectronics' XH-ABMPR ring-core 3D dynamically adjustable smart welding head (uniformly abbreviated as XH-ABMPR) and HO ring-shaped spot welding head are designed to solve these welding challenges. This article shares actual application results through case studies.

Copper and aluminum offer excellent thermal conductivity and are mainstream materials for chip liquid-cooling plates, but they are typical highly reflective materials with unstable laser absorption, making them prone to porosity, uneven penetration, spatter and post-weld deformation. Stainless steel liquid-cooling plates require both sealing reliability and heat input control to prevent thin-wall burn-through and thermal deformation that could shift internal flow channels. Different substrates call for differentiated welding processes, and many production lines need multiple welding heads and equipment, resulting in long debugging cycles; meanwhile, yield fluctuations during mass production have long been a major challenge for process engineers.

"No Porosity, No Spatter" — XH-ABMPR Ring-core 3D Dynamic Adjustable Smart Welding Head

Xinghong Optoelectronics' XH-ABMPR is specifically designed for highly reflective materials and demanding welding scenarios. Unlike conventional fixed-spot welding heads, its innovations include:

·Variable ring-core power, with same-wavelength 1030–1080 nm ring-core and core fibers freely combinable: compatible with various fiber-core configurations, allowing users to flexibly select according to the processing scenario.

·Adjustable ring-core spacing of ±2.5 mm and adjustable focal Z-axis of ±50 mm: surface preheating and bottom penetration can be controlled separately, enabling 3D spatial energy compensation and active temperature-gradient regulation, with customizable weld penetration and width.

·Fixed ring spot with oscillating spot: guides orderly molten pool flow, allowing bubbles to escape from the keyhole in time and ensuring dense, smooth welds.
During welding, the XH-ABMPR flexibly matches the material's laser absorption characteristics, adapting to different materials and plate thicknesses by adjusting defocus and energy density. For copper, aluminum and stainless steel chip liquid-cooling plates, the process window can be quickly locked in. The following section objectively demonstrates actual processing results based on implemented projects.

Case: Hermetic welding of copper chip liquid-cooling plates—solving porosity and spatter challenges in highly reflective copper

Copper liquid-cooling plates are core components for chip heat dissipation. Their welds must be free of porosity, have a dense microstructure, and pass pressure testing on the first attempt. Copper has extremely high thermal conductivity and heat spreads quickly; once local heat input is out of control, significant deformation occurs, and deformation of the flow channels directly changes the coolant flow rate, causing the entire plate to be scrapped.

During the early trial-production stage, a conventional single-spot laser welding solution was used, resulting in large welding quality fluctuations, a high porosity defect rate, heavy welding spatter, and high subsequent cleaning costs.

After switching to the XH-ABMPR welding head, the energy ratio between the spot and ring spots can be adjusted independently: the central spot stably breaks through the copper surface oxide layer to create a stable keyhole; the outer ring delivers gentle, uniform energy that preheats and maintains the molten pool, reducing copper's laser reflectivity and slowing the molten pool cooling rate, giving bubbles in the pool sufficient time to rise and escape. Meanwhile, the central spot oscillates at high speed, further driving bubbles out of the keyhole, effectively ensuring weld gas-tightness and surface flatness.

Welding Parameters
Welding equipment: Xinghong XH-ABMPR 6+3 (OSC) welding head, 6 kW + 3 kW
Workpiece: Copper chip liquid-cooling plate
Welding power: spot 2800 W (14 μm) + ring 4800 W (34 μm)
Welding speed: 2.4 m/min

Measured results show that at this welding speed, the weld cross-section has no porosity defects, the gas-tightness inspection yield remains high, and spatter is significantly suppressed.
In this case, the core value of the XH-ABMPR is broadening the process window for copper liquid-cooling plates. With its dynamically adjustable ring-core structure, ample margin is reserved for process debugging—even if incoming material fluctuates slightly, there is no need to frequently adjust the laser system, ensuring stable production line operation.

"Stabilize the Molten Pool, Reduce Spatter" — HO Ring-shaped Spot Welding Head

Xinghong Optoelectronics' HO series ring-shaped spot laser welding head offers a new technical approach: the device connects to a single fiber, and optical conversion from a Gaussian spot to a ring spot is completed inside the welding head, providing the following engineering advantages:
·No dedicated ring-shaped light source input required

·Compatible with conventional lasers on the market

·More economical and convenient production line upgrades and retrofits

·Welding heads covering 2–60 kW

Case: Thin-wall hermetic welds for stainless steel chip liquid-cooling plates—ensuring stable flow channel dimensions

Stainless steel liquid-cooling plates are mostly used in heat dissipation scenarios requiring special media and corrosion resistance. The plates have thin walls and precisely arranged internal micro-channels; concentrated heat input can easily cause thin-wall burn-through or thermal deformation that squeezes the internal flow channels. The customer's core requirements are: continuous hermetic welds, controllable penetration, a heat-affected zone as small as possible, and no obvious deformation of the flow channel profile after welding.

During the small-batch sampling stage, a conventional single-spot laser welding solution was used, which was prone to defects such as weld blackening and discoloration, local sagging, inconsistent weld formation, porosity, undercut, and large workpiece deformation.
After switching to the HO30S-Y ring-spot welding head and completing process debugging, the ring spot forms a wider, gentler heat-affected zone, reducing the risk of microcracks in stainless steel caused by quenching embrittlement.

Welding Parameters
Welding equipment: Xinghong HO30S-Y welding head, 3 kW
Workpiece: Stainless steel chip liquid-cooling plate, 1 mm cover plate lap welding
Welding power: 350 W, 450 W, 500 W
Welding speed: 1.5 m/min, 2 m/min, 3 m/min
Process verification results show that the weld appearance is continuous and uniform, with no local sagging or burn-through defects; the deformation of the internal flow channels in the liquid-cooling plate is controllable and meets the fluid design specifications, and all sealing tests pass.

How the ring spot works: it converts the peak-like concentrated energy of a Gaussian spot into more evenly distributed ring-shaped energy, improving the molten pool state and enhancing weld quality. This optical conversion is completed inside the welding head, with no need for a dedicated ring-shaped light source, providing a more economical and convenient solution.

Boosting both yield and quality in the chip liquid-cooling industry

In the computing-power liquid-cooling supply chain, welding is the invisible key that determines the long-term reliability of the liquid-cooling system. Weld leakage and unstable yield can directly hold back project implementation. Xinghong Optoelectronics develops and manufactures its own core laser welding equipment, supported by professional testing platforms, and customizes adapted solutions based on measured data. Integrating optical design and process verification, it systematically solves liquid-cooling plate welding pain points, provides innovative technical support for the computing-power liquid-cooling supply chain, empowers production lines to improve quality and efficiency, and ensures mass-production yield and stability.

Article source: Xinghong Optoelectronics

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No Spatter! No Porosity! Xinghong Optoelectronics’ "Ring-Core 3D Dynamic Adjustable" Intelligent Welding Head Delivers

12 Nov,2026

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