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The Not-So-Cool Future
markmcb writes "Researchers at Purdue University and several other universities are looking to start work on a major problem standing in the way of future chip design: heat. The team is proposing a new center to consolidate efforts in finding solutions for the problem that is expected to become a reality within the next 15 years as future chips are expected to produce around 10 times as much heat as today's chips. The new center would work to develop circuits that consume less electricity and couple them with micro cooling devices."
Think about the people up in northern Canada, who need that precious heat! Unless this is some evil conspiracy to kill them off?
My UID is prime... is yours?
What this boils down to is "researches are looking at ways to make cooler chips." Well, duh, haven't they always?
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I thought the future of processors was going ot be photonic processors. I'm not sure if these will be producing any heat or not.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I think that the solution to the heat problem will not come with better and more powerful cooling solutions, but rather radically changing how chips are designed and manufactured. The article doesn't contradict this, but I just want to emphasize that. Having some liquid nitrogen cooling unit is not the optimal, or even a good solution.
Canadian Cynic, canadian politics is less boring than you
"Meanwhile, the cloud of electrons would be alternatively attracted to and repelled by adjacent electrodes. Alternating the voltages on the electrodes creates a cooling breeze because the moving cloud stirs the air."
Amazing, Purdue is developing the same technology used in such high tech devices as the Ionic Breeze air purifier.
Especially for those of us with newer motherboards who want a completely silent system with as few fans as possible
First it was CPUs with cooling and big/slow/no fans and big heatsinks, then PSUs GPUs and now MOBOs. My current custom box (now 14 months old) was built to be silent and I had a hard time settling on a motherboard that was state of the art, stable, and still used a passive heatsink to cool the board chipset fan-free. I finally settled on an Asus P4P800.
I can definately believe heat becoming even more of an issue. For those of us who want power/performance and quiet at the same time, this will become even more of a challenge as time goes on. I for one hope not to rely on expensive and/or complicated cooling devices, like peltier units, water pumps and the like. I hope the focus is on efficient chips that only clock up/power up as they need to, like the pentuim M.
my 2 cents.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
Actually many researchers are in fact seriously pursuing using diamond as a future replacement for silicon. Both diamond and silicon are *very bad* conductors in their pure state. Both have to be doped (with phosphorous, boron, etc.) to become p-type or n-type semiconductors, which makes them useful as a substrate for microprocessors (note that when doped they are semiconductors, not conductors... your microchip would just short-out if the entire wafer was made of a metal/conductor).
Diamond's superior thermal, optical, and chemical-resistance properties make it attractive for future microprocessors... but unfortunately it is more difficult to make it work as a semiconductor, which is why silicon has always been the substrate of choice.
It's very interesting research, and we'll see where it goes. For more info, this C&E News article is good, or check here, or here and there's a bit here.