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A startup’s cooling chip may surge processor power

allaboutcircuits.com

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Re: A startup’s cooling chip may surge processor power

#23
post #21

For some reason I thought battery life was more constraining than cooling in mobile devices?

Different constraints. Better cooling allows the processor to throttle less and achieve higher average performance, which incidentally would also reduce your battery life if you had the processor running at 100% load the whole time.

Re: A startup’s cooling chip may surge processor power

#24
post #12

I don't understand why they are blowing air over the chip - why not use a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe ? They can be made extremely thin and work much better than air. Maybe even combine the piezoelectric idea with a heat pipe to increase thermal flow.

The diagram is misleading. The use case seems to be to directly vent air from the device which already has a passive cooling design. Drawing that air from near the chip maximizes the temperature delta and thus efficiency.

Not sure how novel it is considering things like https://www.curiejet.com/en/product/micro-pump/air-pump-and-... already exist.

Re: A startup’s cooling chip may surge processor power

#25
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like these are not as common/popular as they were back in the day. Now it's all water cooling with those all-in-one setups. I always thought the Peltier coolers were cool (pun not originally intended, but now it is).

I was very young, probably as a teenager back in the 90s, when I discovered the existence of Peltier elements for the first time, and that one had been part of one of my former CPU coolers for all the time. After an upgrade, I had this now unused CPU fan on my desk, and took it apart for whatever reason (because it and the screwdriver were there, I guess). And there I noticed that as part of the assembly there had be…

It would have been far less interesting had you accidentally touched the hot side first. :)

Re: A startup’s cooling chip may surge processor power

#26

I'm just really glad its not some Peltier junction solution. It looks like it could be a boon for low power devices that throttle easily such as tablets, maybe even phones and ultra thing laptops. Might even make cooling for non-cpu chips easier.

I feel like these are not as common/popular as they were back in the day. Now it's all water cooling with those all-in-one setups. I always thought the Peltier coolers were cool (pun not originally intended, but now it is).

My university surplus store was selling a huge batch of peltier elements that were used in cloud chamber research for very cheap. I bought them and connected some to a homemade water cooler loop circa 2006. I could generate temperatures around -20f in my dorm room IIRC. Condensation, and then frost would start to form quickly. It was an interesting project, for sure!

Re: A startup’s cooling chip may surge processor power

#27
post #25
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was very young, probably as a teenager back in the 90s, when I discovered the existence of Peltier elements for the first time, and that one had been part of one of my former CPU coolers for all the time. After an upgrade, I had this now unused CPU fan on my desk, and took it apart for whatever reason (because it and the screwdriver were there, I guess). And there I noticed that as part of the assembly there had be…

It would have been far less interesting had you accidentally touched the hot side first. :)

Would it though? I guess I'd have been extremely confused, "why is there a thing that generates heat on my cooler", and hopefully I'd have also touched the cold side at some point, and I'd still have been mesmerized... I think?

Re: A startup’s cooling chip may surge processor power

#30
An inkjet nozzle for air. Not enough for a 100 W CPU die of that size, but it sounds like an interesting idea.

Dissipation and consumption both seem to scale linearly with area:

The datasheet says the Mini has 5.25 W heat dissipation with 1 W max consumption. Size is 27.5 x 41.5 x 2.8 mm. Area 1141 mm².

The Pro has 10.5 W dissipation at 1.75 W draw. Size is 31.5 x 71.5 x 2.8 mm. Area 2252 mm².

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