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Startup Offers Peltier-On-Chip
LowSNR writes "The South Carolina based startup Nextreme, Inc. is developing technology to put Peltier Coolers in chip packages, according to an Ars Technica report. The tiny coolers could be situated on top of local hotspots on the die and pump heat away through a package pin to the motherboard. Also, the Seebeck Effect allows the waste heat to be used to be harvested to generate/reclaim power."
I think the heat recycling aspect itself shows some promise, and the design being built into the chip, but we have to consider that the same kind of designers that use these are just as likely to push the chip beyond the capabilities in terms of the total heat reduction for the system.
People who tend to overclock or use overclocked chips, will frequently push the envelope even further if they think they can get away with it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In theory, yes; the chip is hotter than its environment, so you can put a heat engine between them and generate energy. The maximum theoretical efficiency of this process is given by Carnot cycle and depends on the heat difference between the processor and the environment and the temperature of the environment. With current processors you can't really exceed 60 degree Celsius, or 333 Kelvin, and the environment is typically at 20 degree Celsius, or 293 Kelvin, so the maximum theoretical efficiency is around 12%.
Of course, if you could find more durable materials, you could just insulate the processor, let it heat up to a thousand degree Celsius or so, and get nearly 77 percent efficiency. The hotter you run the processor, the more efficient the system becomes; a hypothetical plasma-state processor at 10,000K would give a theoretical efficiency of 97%.
It would also give a whole new meaning to "flamebait" ;).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I attended a conference in November of '06 (IMECE in Chicago) and sat in on a presentation by two Motorola researchers who seemed to have already developed something similar. Anyhow, the major problem with these materials is that they aren't very efficient because of the simple fact that electrons carry heat. These devices just aren't practical with current materials.
Never heard of carnot efficiency before, have you?
Any energy recovered from this small temperature differential would be miniscule compared to the initial cost of putting a stirling engine in a computer. It costs energy to run the peltier plate as a heat pump, if you want low power it'd be less difficult and cheaper to just build a bigger heat sink.