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'Nano-Lightning' Could Cool Computer Chips
FizzyC writes "A story on New Scientist describes a technique to cool computer chips using charged ions. The system consists of 300 electrodes that ionise and then pump the air molecules across the surface of the chip. The Purdue University technology is the first air-based system to produce a cooling rate similar to water - 40 watts per square centimetre."
How much heat does this heatsink *produce*, by ionizing air. I suspect than not much less than the 40W/cm2 it claims to cool.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, consult.
-cp-
Alaska Village invited to test cheap, clean nuclear power
(see subject.)
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
the article starts out by overhyping the technology and ends with cautious optimism with quotes from someone working on it.
at this point in time, this sounds to me as cool as reading an article about teaching bees to flap their wings inside my case to cool the circuits down.
As I read it, basically, the air is ionized by electrodes, and the ionized air is then pulled across the heat sink via electric charge. This happens to be the same concept as used in the "Ion Air Purifiers" that are advertised on TV. This is supposedly more efficient because the airflow is induced along the surface of the heatsink directly instead of the brute-force method of a fan where the air is thrown at the heatsink en masse and it is hoped that it diplaces the hot air already there. Kinda makes me wonder how this would work in a real-world environment... small particles like dust, pollen, and smoke are attracted to the ionized surfaces (this is how the air purifiers work), so in a place like Southern California, I would imagine that the dust buildup on the heatsink would be much worse with this method than a fan... And dust buildup on a heatsink is not only an insulator, but in the case of the ionized airflow heatsink, it may actually render the ionization process useless, and the air will cease to flow, creating not only an insulated heatsink, but dead air over it.
Won't this system produce nanothunder?
here in my Phoenix, Arizona lab for quite some time but I've been rather disapointed with the results.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
More reasonably, short people, old people, and children cannot reach into a chest refrigerator easily. A chest refrigerator takes up twice as much precious floor space. A chest refrigerator is the sort in which a child can be easily trapped.
If you really want to save cold air in a refrigerator, produce one with a second clear door inside. This would keep all the safety and convenience features of an upright fridge, and remove the major cause of air loss, which is choosing what to take out.
You'd be better off with a heat pipe than a glycol loop. Not only would you need only one tube, but the effective conductivity would be much higher and you'd have zero pumping power requirements.
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I agree, I don't think this technology is applicable for cooling directly on the chip. However, this Ionic Breeze technology i think would be perfect for cases.
-cp-
Alaska Village invited to test cheap, clean nuclear power
The reason no one has replaced their fans with Ionic Breezes is because they move air slowly and require constant cleaning. They simply don't remove heat from the case fast enough. You even said so yourself: "They don't throughput much air, and they need constant cleaning,"
Hammer of Truth
The stationary layer on the surface of heatsink is the problem, which they try to fix with their invention.
Instead of playing with a high frequency/high voltage surface of the heat sink, I am thinking about a small but high velocity air fan and a dimple-patterned heat sink surface for maximum turbulence. I believe it is possible to generate air vortex over a small surface even with a modest power supply fan. Alternatively, I would use a piezo crystal vibrating the heat sink surface in an (unaudible) ultrasonic frequency for the same effect.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
Double-paning the door (with either a vacuum or a closed dry gas between the two panes) would eliminate most of the condensation problems.
I guess you would have some condensation from warmer air that contacts the interior surface when the door is open, but my intuition is that this would be minimal even with glass and any remaining condenstaion problem could be eliminated by using a material with a lower heat conductivity than glass or coating the glass with a no-fog coating.
Actually, I am surprised more grocery stores don't double pane the glass in the freezer cases. Maybe energy lost to air escaping overshadows energy lost through thermal conduction because customers open the doors so often.
Basically, childproofing a chest freezer/fridge is problematic and the basic design is less convenient for most people as stated before.
So you would want to make a bunch of ions inside your computer, don't get me wrong but would'nt you have some electrical problems then.
When I recenty installed some new memory, it came with a nice static electricity warning. So now you would want to make a gas-cloud of ions inside your computer, if static electricity can kill your components doesn't that mean that ions can too?
Ok, as long as the system is running the ions are trapped between all those electrodes, but where to these ions go when you switch off the power?
Better have some capacitators ready......
And those who can't manage ... are still managers.
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
If the water heating was significant, then the pool would be hotter on the days that you want to cool off in it. That would suck. But swimming pools have a lot of thermal "inertia", so maybe it wouldn't affect the water too much...
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