Nieuw thermo-elektrisch materiaal kan heatsinks vervangen

Onderzoek aan de Michigan State University heeft een nieuw thermo-elektrisch materiaal opgeleverd waarmee de temperatuur van IC's met 200 graden Celcius verlaagd kan worden, terwijl de kloksnelheid tegelijkertijd kan verdubbelen. De techniek zou een ideale vervanger van de huidige heatsink+fan combo's kunnen zijn (thanks tomson voor de tip):

A new thermoelectric material that becomes cool when conducting electricity promises to replace heat sinks and fans in electronic equipment. For a 20 percent premium in manufacturing chips, the patented material may increase their speed 100 percent by dropping a circuit's internal temperature as much as 200°C below current operating temperatures, its inventor says.

"Today people use bismuth and tellurium alloys to make thermoelectric materials that can drive temperatures down 50°K below the ambient, but by adding cesium we can drive the temperature down from 60° to 100° or even 200°," said professor Mercouri Kanatzidis, the material's inventor here at Michigan State University. Tests of p-n junctions made with the new material showed a maximum thermoelectric performance at 225°K.

[...] As for cooling chips and electronic equipment, Kanatzidis believes his material can be sandwiched with traditional bismuth-tellurium alloys to provide continuous cooling capability from ambient temperatures down to 200°K below normal operating temperature.

Check dit artikel van EETimes voor meer info.