New Chip-cooling Technology

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."

Comments

Re:Ozone production FTW

[SoapBox17]

Welcome to 2004. The o-zone problem is solved. It fixes itself over time, as long as nothing is continually damaging it. Since CFCs were banned a long time ago, the o-zone hole has begun to shrink. It'll be gone in about 50 years.

ozone

[TheSHAD0W]

FWIS The "ionic wind" takes place inside a sealed chamber, no ozone would be leaking out.

Re:ozone

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple heat transfer.

1. Heat is transferred from processor to "sealed chamber" through a contact (most likely metal) with a good heat transfer capability.
2. Heat is then transferred to the air within the "sealed chamber" to the air current residing within the chamber.
3. Air is replaced with cool air as hot air is transferred out of the case.

This creates a heat pipe of sorts (though water or anti-freeze is replaced with the air, which won't harm electronics and should be quieter, since the system has no moving parts), unlike current cooling systems which simply blow hot air away from the CPU but where it inevitably recycles through the case to some degree.

Re:ozone

[radl33t]

You are quite right. The AC has no idea what he is talking about. If only his grasp of "simple heat transfer" matched his arrogance. This is not a sealed chamber. The ions impart momentum to a near wall flow and destroy the boundary layer. Good mixing at the wall = good heat transfer! (The article says as much) These Purdue dudes have a lot of neat electronics cooling stuff going on. I had the pleasure of getting the whole delivery at a seminar last Fall.

Didn't we already do this one?

[John Sokol]

From Sep 17, 2006
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/ 17/2134250

Ionic Cooling For Your Computer
master0ne writes, "We (the folks over at InventGeek) have produced the first ionic cooling system for your high-end gaming system. This system produces absolutely no noise and in fact has no moving parts at all. While this is a proof of concept, it demonstrates that you can get the CFM you need to cool a system efficiently with no moving parts and no increase in power consumption." And another post
From Jan 3, 2007
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/ 03/1951256

Ionic Winds Chilling Your Computer
Iddo Genuth writes to mention The Future of Things online magazine is reporting that Kronos Advanced Technologies in cooperation with Intel and the University of Washington claims to have developed a new type of ultra-thin, silent cooling technology for processors. The piece covers many of the cooling technologies currently available, how their new corona discharge cooler works, and a short interview with several of the key team members. And my reply on that one.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=21484 8&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=174537 66

One was using the Ionic Breeze technique to provide just a slight air flow, but it increases the efficiency of the heat sink but a large amount. Problem that they fail to mention is the heatsink really attracts dust, just like the ionic breaze, so you need to get in there with a brush quite often.

Below is a link to many of the prototypes I built. I don't have a photo of the ionic version, but it was just the desktop unit with the large aluminum heatsinks with a plastic duct/ shield was added and a set of fine wires was run across the bottom of the large aluminum heat sinks with -6000V DC on it.
The aluminum heat sinks were grounded. Here is another reply from Jonathan Walther

Give John Sokol the credit (Score:3, Informative)
by Jonathan Walther (676089) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 03, @09:00PM (#17452802)
Back in 2002 when John Sokol was designing the first, and still the most efficient silent computer, we discussed the ionic air cooling. I think it was Bill Drury who first mentioned it. We put it off as a possible future direction to go. It didn't seem like it would be nearly as productive a direction as the thermal ground technology John developed. Time has proven John right; his thermal plane and thermal ground patents will revolutionize the computer industry fairly soon now. As a director of Nisvara, I can't reveal more than that at this time. But if you want a silent computer with no moving parts and even lower power consumption than these "coronal discharge" guys are claiming, get in touch with John Sokol.

Re:Didn't we already do this one?

[aproposofwhat]

From my reading of the article, I'd say there's a fundamental difference - the ionic wind in this case is produced at the CPU surface, eliminating the trapped layer of air that is produced by normal (laminar) flow from a fan.

Pointing an Ionic Breeze at a heatsink will merely produce the same type of airflow as a fan, only quieter.

Forcing the trapped layer of air at the CPU surface to move should improve the efficiency of the cooling, though a 2 1/2 times improvement seems pretty high - obviously the boundary layer is a significant insulator in this case.

Re:Ozone production FTW

[E 99]

Ground-level ozone is a pollutant and therefore bad.

I think you mean it's bad and therefore a pollutant.

Re:Ozone production FTW

[scruff323]

Actually ozone is a problem in the lower atmosphere. Ozone is very harmful to breathe and can be a problem on hot days in cities. You are talking about the ozone holes in the upper atmosphere, which is a different problem. If these things were to produce ozone (which i doubt), they would actually be harmful and not helpful as the ozone would not patch the ozone hole.

CFCs and HCFCs

[Enderandrew]

HCFCs still burn a hole into the ozone layer, and the full damage from released CFCs and HCFCs can take up to 50 years as it is a chain reaction. I worked on air conditioners in the military and had to become EPA certified on the stuff. I got the "Universal" license from the EPA. The biggest offender in this area is still the US government. While most civilian vehicles have newer HCFC-based air conditioners, the military does not. And not everyone has banned CFCs fully yet.

From the Wikipedia:

"By the year 2010 CFCs should be completely eliminated from developing countries as well."

Re:CFCs and HCFCs

[evilviper]

And don't go spouting nonsense about how they work just as good. B.S. Got in an older Toyota the other day that still had the old refrigerant in it, and the air it throws out of this little 4 banger is WAY colder than any new car I've been in, and that is several makes and models.

That's completely idiotic.

The fact that a certain car has a more powerful A/C is because it was designed to be more powerful, NOT because of the refrigerant. No doubt your old Toyota's A/C demands far more power to operate than any of the newer ones you've compared it with.

There is a difference between refrigerants, but it's a very small one, and couldn't REMOTELY account for your magical little story there. In fact, air conditioners have been getting more and more energy efficient over the years, at the same time that refrigerants have been getting less toxic.

Re:CFCs and HCFCs

[mikael]

Seriously, how do we know that the hole was caused by cfc's, I would think if it was and the cfc's somehow defied gravity and got up to the ozone layer there would be multiple holes?

Because at the North and South poles, the atmosphere does not circulate very well with regards to the rest of the planet. You end up with a large Polar vortex of cold air remaining stationary over the area, which allows the CFC to react with other chemicals in the air:

The chemistry of the Antarctic polar vortex has created severe ozone depletion. The nitric acid in polar stratospheric clouds reacts with CFCs to form chlorine, which catalyzes the photochemical destruction of ozone. Chlorine concentrations build up during the winter polar night, and the consequent ozone destruction is greatest when the sunlight returns in spring (September/October). These clouds can only form at temperatures below about -80C, so the warmer Arctic region does not have an ozone hole.

ESD issue?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

This technology looks like it might deposit a large electric charge on the surface of the chip. This will have to be dissipated, before it dissipates itself by creating an electrostatic discharge on (or capacitively coupled to) one of the chips interconnects.

To avoid this the insulating passivation layer will probably have to be topped by an additional conductive layer. This layer, in turn, will increase the capacitive load on the interconnects and likely require additional chip power to switch them.

I expect it will still be a big net improvement. But deploying it won't be trivial.

Re:Only delaying the inevitable

[Enderandrew]

Actually most people are buying these powerful, speedy processors that underclock themselves to cut down on power and heat. Both AMD and Intel have been very mindful of power and heat consumption lately. Literally processors have more power than what we're throwing at them. Clock-speed has not been racing upwards significantly the past few years, but power consumption has been going down and efficiency going up.

Re:Ozone production FTW

[compro01]

or eating it.

several people do eat it on the advise of their doctor. (warfarin). at the proper dosage, it is quite useful for preventing blood clots.

Re:Ozone production FTW

[DaveWick79]

And you're just promoting the mostly incorrect nonsense you've heard. Yes, ozone in high quantities can be harmful. Do you even know what ozone is? It's 0^3, which is a highly unstable form of oxygen which quickly breaks down into stable 0^2 and 0^1. The 0^1 has properties which cause it to seek to bond to harmful molecules. This is what makes it useful for water treatment, air treatment, and blood treatment. Unless it is in such high quantities that it starts bonding to good molecules, it is not harmful, but beneficial.

Re:New Technology?

[pla]

Hmm then what is this 'Ionic breeze' thing sitting beside me that is blowing air around my room with no fans or other moving parts?

Well, according to Consumer reports, according to every independant laboratory test, according to even Sharper Image itself...

I'd have to answer "A waste of money and electricy".

Yes, it (slowly) moves air. It just doesn't clean it effectively.