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Intel Develops Micro-Refrigerator To Cool Chips

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the cool-devices dept.

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."

4 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Pelletier effect? by Fastfwd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is this the same as a pelletier effect? I hate fans and definitely would pay a premium to get rid of them.

    1. Re:Pelletier effect? by Rakh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It might be that the cooling element can withstand much higher temperatures than the chip itself can. Thus there is a benefit to decrease the temperature inside the chip, even if it that does make the other side of the cooling device much hotter, since the heat will not be doing any damage on that side.

    2. Re:Pelletier effect? by jhfry · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Imagine this...

      circuit operates at 3GHz at 20C or at 4GHz at 10C. So you say, lets cool it then!

      Well if you couple chip to copper heatsink and fan, you can't possibly drop temps to sub-ambient temps.

      However, with a cooler, you can... so long as you can dump the extra heat fast enough.

      The biggest reason peltier coolers are rarely used is that they tend to cause condensation, and they acutally generate additional heat, requiring even more cooling.

      However, if you could create a small one, that was within the housing, cooled only the necessary areas, and didn't need to be sealed from the humidity... it would be this.

      --
      Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
  2. Competition by phorm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While many have already mentioned the obvious drawbacks (heat may drop on the most-effected areas, but it still needs to get the heat *out* of the case), if this is still an effective and innovative method for cooling then I wonder how Intel would go about licensing it. Holding onto tech that would allow for a 15c drop in core temperature would probably give them quite a strong advantage over competitors such as AMD, etc, which might be worth more than the advantage of licensing it out...