New Chip-cooling Technology 167
BillOfThePecosKind writes "Researchers have demonstrated a new technology using tiny "ionic wind engines" that might dramatically improve computer chip cooling, possibly addressing a looming threat to future advances in computers and electronics. Purdue researchers funded by Intel have improved the "heat-transfer coefficient" by some 250%. I never liked water cooled systems, and this sounds promising. However I wonder how much ozone one of these things produces."
Re:ozone (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm possibly being naive, and I've yet to read the featured article, but if the ionic wind is inside a sealed chamber how does it aid cooling? Surely the sealed chamber would simply grow warmer over time and become a thermal insulator?
If I'm being dumb please don't hesitate to retort or point out the flaws in my thinking...
Re:Didn't we already do this one? (Score:5, Insightful)
New Technology? (Score:3, Insightful)
New application of really old technology would be a bit more accurate.
Re:Ozone production FTW (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:CFCs and HCFCs (Score:2, Insightful)
Power consumption, anyone?? (Score:1, Insightful)
Now this is all interesting and so, but what about making those chips be a bit more power efficient for starters? I mean save some remaining high-end applications, modern processing power is enough. More than enough for 99% of the applications.
It'd be nice if the CPUs would become more power efficient, that has so many advantages: lower power bills, saving the environment, longer battery life for laptops, silent computers for less need of cooling, etc. For now it seems every new incarnation of the major CPUs (Intel, AMD) is wasting only more power!
Keeping the chip cool is not the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:CFCs and HCFCs (Score:3, Insightful)
If you've never had the pleasure of entering a dark colored car sitting out on asphalt for 8+ hours in full sun on a 115 degree day and turn on the AC and get hit with cold air, and then do the same with any R134 equipped car, you don't know what you're talking about. One last note, R134 did improve on one issue that used to be a problem with R12 systems: R134 systems don't suffer from freeze lock (that'd be where the evaporator in the dash gets so cold that water freezes onto it, blocking air flow and killing your cooling power).
So yes, R12 performs far better than R134. If you're willing to void your warranty, you can improve the performance of your R134 system by doping it with propane and iso-butane and approach the performance of an R12 system.