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Intel Develops Micro-Refrigerator To Cool Chips
Spacedonkey writes "Researchers at Intel, RTI International of North Carolina, and Arizona State University have made ultra-thin 'micro-refrigerators' for computer chips. The device uses a thermoelectric cooler made from nanostructured thin-film superlattice that can reduce the temperature by 55C when a current passes through it. In testing, it reduced the temperature on part of a chip by 15C without impairing its performance. The researchers say the component could be particularly useful for cooling hot spots that frequently occur on multi-core chips."
Looks very similar. And, like Peltier devices, the same fundamental problem remains - you've moved the heat from one spot to another, but it doesn't just disappear. You're still going to have to get it out of the general vicinity of other temperature-sensitive components, and that probably means fans.
The idea isn't to remove the heat from the chip, the idea is to remove the heat from this ONE SPOT on the chip.
Basically they are trying to keep the core cooler, and dump heat to the transfer plate more effectively.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
It's not so much about dealing with the heat overall, it's dealing with the heat in the hottest places. The more heat bottlenecks you get rid of, the hotter you can run the chip stably.
Don't get me wrong, the implementation doesn't come without drawbacks. There's the higher expense for the extra circuitry, and the higher electrical requirements to run the coolers. It looks like the only need for this is on high-end chips and even there it's only absolute bleeding edge that'll need anything like this, however for the enthusiast, the CAD designer, the video editor or the programmer, this may just be a breath of fresh air.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.