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."

Comments

Useful, but not new

[smellsofbikes]

Peltier devices on-chip have been used for a while, whenever temperature variations are intolerable. Some examples: Analog Devices AD595 thermocouple amp, which uses in-chip thermal calibration to ensure a cold junction of known temperature, and many voltage regulators and switching supply controllers that use temperature-controlled bandgaps as their voltage reference.

Re:Perpetum Mobile ?

[ultranova]

Can I use the excess heat from my P4 to produce the energy for my p4?

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" ;).