Silent Microchip 'Fan' Has No Moving Parts

Stony Stevenson writes "Researchers in the US have developed a microchip fan with no moving parts that operates silently and generates enough wind to cool a laptop computer. The solid-state fan, developed with support from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), is touted as the most powerful and energy efficient fan of its size. The device produces three times the flow rate of a typical small mechanical fan and is one-fourth the size. The technology has the power to cool a 25W chip with a device smaller than one cubic-cm and can someday be integrated into silicon to make self-cooling chips, according to the researchers."

Comments

Re:nothing new..

[epine]

... touted as the most powerful and energy efficient fan of its size ... With that glowing endorsement, it's possible that in terms of absolute efficiency (power consumption/rate of air flow) it blows goats.

The automotive industry pulls this stunt all the time. Some lame-mass product is designated "best in class" by Kudos-For-Sale Inc. and the reader is left to wonder if the "class" includes any other models by any other manufacturer, or if the entire class is just the same useless car available with 17 different trim configurations.

In Detroit, the primary criteria over whether two vehicles belong in different classes is whether either vehicles incorporates superior technology. The golden rule is never to compare one thing to another thing that might actually be better.

Cooling 25W has no information content, unless operating delta_T over ambient is also given. Useless. Comparison failed.

I've been waiting for this targeted advertising thing to kick into gear.

I have an exceptionally long lumbar region, so I have the seated height of an average person who is 6'7". I see all these car ads promising "more leg room" than a Samizdat, "more head room" than a Clonazipan. O RLY?

My typical seated posture is a 45 degree recline so my head doesn't scuff the sun roof. My head is well back into the seat behind me. With a foot long tongue I could lick the dome light. This includes most "full sized" pick-up trucks.

Problem: by the time my head is no longer bumping the canopy, my shoulders are positioned so far back in the cabin my arms can no longer reach the steering wheel. The next thing I do is slam the seat forward until my knees physically strike the dashboard. Then I can reach the steering wheel, operate the pedals, *and* see the traffic lights (dimly, through the windscreen tint).

This is my typical experience of "more leg room".

I'll believe in targeted advertising the first time Google tells me "you would be so squashed inside this 'roomy' contraption, after a week you'd park it in neutral and roll it over a cliff face".

Unfortunately, much science reporting has caught this disease from Detroit. The next landmark for Google is to be able to summarize this kind bad technology PR as "uselessly claims to cool 25W without disclosing operating delta_T over ambient". *That* would be Turing test worth passing.

If the ads were similarly useful, I might for the first time in my life click on one.