The next generation of chips are gonna need some major coolin’, perhaps as much as 1000 Watts of cold per square centimetre. We’re talkin’ high-speed microprocessors, optoelectronics, micro- and millimeter-wave power electronics and power conditioning transistors for electronic motor control in hybrid vehicles\u00a0power converters\u00a0etc. These are machines that will\u00a0generate significant heat.<\/p>\n
Ordinary coolin fans ain’t gonna work for those kindsa fluxes so alotta engineers have been thinkin’ about phase change systems in which a liquid absorbs heat, boils into a gas and carries the\u00a0energy away.<\/p>\n
The trouble is that\u00a0\u00a0a vapor layer tends to form over the surface of a chip\u00a0and this\u00a0acts as an insulator preventing further heat transfer.<\/p>\n
So Ari Glezer and pals at the Georgia Institue of Technology in Atlanta have come up with a way of dislodging the vapor\u00a0by bombarding it with sound. It’s just a pump for pushing the liquid round with a piezovibrator to create an acoustic field.<\/p>\n
They reckon it works well and at relatively low power. In their set up, they achieve a colling rate of 165W per square cm. But with acoustic zapping they can raise this to 338 W per square cm. That’s an improvement of 150%.<\/p>\n