Aircon used to keep chips cool - Little fridges

By Dave Murray @ Wednesday, July 16, 2008 4:43 PM

Section - PCs/Hardware

Boffins at Purdue University, perhaps inspired by the beer fridge they have in the lab, have been inspired to use air conditioning technology on computer chips.

Their experimental system flushes a refrigerant through tiny channels cut into the chip. The boffins can use the device to cool their 1,000 watt chips of heat five times better than air cooling.

Hydrofluorocarbons, a liquid used in air conditioners to cool air, are flushed through tiny holes in a metal plate called microjets and into the channels to draw heat away from the chip.

Top boffin, Issam Mudawar, a mechanical engineering professor at Purdue, said the cooling system is intended for the high-power electronics found in radar and advanced weapons systems such as lasers. He said that if he can get the cooling right, chipmakers can make more aggressive chips.

Of course Hydrofluorocarbons rip holes in the Ozone layer but apart from that, what could go wrong? Check it out here. X