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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."
The writer neglects to mention that peltiers add their own heat load GREATER than their energy consumption, and that means you need additional cooling. Even if the devices themselves ran cooler, you would need a significantly larger dissipation device to handle the load which is now CPU + Peltiers, instead of just CPU.
Overclockers have been using peltiers bigger than the entire cores of CPU's to create a temperature delta below ambient for years. This is nothing new, just someone attempting to capitalize on a known effect.
To run a peltier you generally have to do the following:
1. Insulate your motherboard and CPU against condensation because peltiers typically drop your core temperature below ambient.
2. Provide a separate power supply JUST to power the peltier, because they typically need in excess of 200W to reliably cool a modern cpu
3. Add surface area to the final cooling point(radiators or heatsinks) to handle the added load of 200W+ to the cooling loop introduced by the peltier itself. This usually results in requiring a method of transport for the heat because no element that sits directly on top of a CPU could get big enough(you'd exceed the weight tolerances of the PCB materials).
4. Add significant temperature monitoring because when a peltier fails, or becomes overrun by heat, they become reverse pumps and will fry your processors faster than you can pull the plug from your PC to save it.