HEAT SINK FASTENER

1. Technical Field

The invention relates to heat sinks, particularly to fasteners for fixing a heat sink on an electronic device.

2. Related Art

With the advancement of semiconductor technology, electronic components such as the CPUs run with higher and higher frequency. Thus heat sinks for electronic components have become indispensible. A heat sink must be firmly mounted on an electronic component by a fastener. Such a fastener must be easy to be installed and detached.

Taiwan patent No. 505267 discloses a typical heat sink fastener. TW '267 employs a lever to install or detach the heat sink, but the lever is in direct contact with the heat sink. However, some heat sinks may be improper for being directly depressed because direct depression may cause damage, deformation or instability.

An object of the invention is to provide a heat sink fastener which may prevent the heat sink from being damaged by means of indirect depression.

To accomplish the above object, the fastener of the invention includes a frame seat, a latch and two depressors. The frame seat is formed with a hollow for accommodating the heat sink and the latch is moveably mounted on the frame seat. The depressors may be selectively pressed or released by the latch against the frame seat. The heat sink can be fastened by the depressors when the depressors are pressed by the latch.

Please refer to FIGS. 1 and 2. The invention provides a fastener for fixing a heat sink 2 onto an electronic component 30 on a circuit board 3. The fastener 1 includes a frame seat 10, a latch 11 and two depressors 12.

The frame seat 10 is formed with a hollow 100 for accommodating the heat sink 2. The heat sink 2 includes a base 20 and a fin set 21 thereon. When the heat sink 2 is placed in the hollow 100 of the frame seat 10, the base 20 of the heat sink 2 may be in contact with the electronic component 30. The frame seat 10 is provided with a plurality of fixing holes 101 for being fixed on the circuit board 3 by a flexible fixer 31 as shown in FIG. 6.

The latch 11 is moveably mounted on the frame seat 10 to depress or release the depressors 12. Please refer to FIGS. 3-5. The latch 11 may be rotated to press the depressors 12 when the heat sink 2 has not been fixed on the electronic component 30 yet. Then the heat sink 2 can be fastened on the electronic component 30 by the depressors 12 because the depressors 12 are pressed by the latch 11.

Please refer back to FIGS. 1 and 2. In the shown embodiment, the latch 11 is formed into a U shape. Two ends of the U-shaped latch 11 are separately formed with two protrusions 110 corresponding to two opposite side walls 102 of the frame seat 10. Each of the side walls 102 is provided with a receiving hole 103 for receiving the protrusions 110. The protrusions 110 are unfixedly inserted into the receiving holes 103 when the latch 11 is perpendicular to the frame seat 10 as shown in FIG. 3. The protrusion 110 is further extended with a hook 111 which can prevent the protrusion 110 from escaping the receiving hole 103 when the latch 11 exerts pressure between the frame seat 10 and depressors 12 as shown in FIG. 5. Furthermore, an upper edge of the receiving hole 103 is formed with a slant 104 for guiding the protrusion 110 to lean against one side of the receiving hole 103. Besides, two ends of the latch 11 are further separately formed with two pressing portions 112.

The depressors 12 are pressed by the latch 11 to exert pressure onto the heat sink 2. In other words, the heat sink 2 is not directly pressed by the latch 11 to avoid damage. In the shown embodiment, each of the depressors 12 is formed into a zigzag plate including an upper pressed section 120 and a lower pressing section 121. The pressed section 120 is pressed by the pressing portion 112 of the latch 11 and the pressing section 121 overlaps the base 20 of the heat sink 2 as shown in FIG. 6. The zigzag shape of the depressor 12 may provide an effect of buffer to reduce damage to the heat sink 2. The pressed section 120 may be further extended with a connecting section 122 having a connecting hole 123. The frame seat 10 is provided with a connecting sheet 105 inserted into the connecting hole 123. The connecting hole 123 is larger than the connecting sheet 105 in size, so the connecting hole 123 may be movably inserted by the connecting sheet 105. This can provide a positioning effect between the depressor 12 and the frame seat 10.

The pressing section 121 of the depressor 12 is provided with at least one threaded hole 124 and the base 20 is provided with at least one through hole 200 corresponding to the threaded hole 124. A bolt 201 may pass through the through hole 200 to screw into the threaded hole 124 for fastening the depressor 12 on the heat sink 2. As shown in FIG. 5, the frame seat 10 is provided with a nut post 106 and the latch 11 is provided with a fixing hole 113 corresponding to the nut post 106. Another bolt 114 may pass through the fixing hole 113 to screw into the nut post 106 for fastening the latch 11 on the frame seat 10.

While the forgoing is directed to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, other and further embodiments of the invention may be devised without departing from the basic scope thereof. As such, the appropriate scope of the invention is to be determined according to the claims.