Built-in CPU cooling technology applications
Whether it's data centers, supercomputers or laptops: the large amount of heat generated by chips and other semiconductor components is one of the biggest problems of modern electronic products. On the one hand, it limits the performance and structural density of components. On the other hand, the cooling process itself consumes a lot of energy, which is used for cooling fans or liquid cooling pumps.
To solve this problem, scientists have been studying ways to improve the efficiency of heat transfer from the chip to the coolant. For example, a metal with better thermal conductivity is used as the contact surface between the cooling system and the chip. However, the efficiency of all methods in the past is not very high, and with the improvement of heat dissipation efficiency, the complexity and manufacturing cost of heat dissipation system also rise exponentially.
Now, Swiss researchers have finally found a better way to invent a chip that does not need external cooling. The microtubules integrated in the semiconductor will bring the cooling liquid directly around the transistor, which not only greatly improves the heat dissipation effect of the chip, but also saves energy and makes future electronic products more environmentally friendly. The production of this integrated cooling is cheaper than the previous process.
The principle of this solution is that instead of cooling from the outside of the chip, the chip is cooled directly inside. The coolant flows through the microtubules integrated in the semiconductor material from below, which means that the heat generated by the transistor as a heat source will be dissipated directly. The microchannel is in direct contact with the transistors in the chip, which establishes a better connection between the heat source and the cooling channel. The three-dimensional branches of the cooling channel also contribute to the distribution of coolant and reduce the pressure required for coolant circulation.
The preliminary test of the cooling system shows that it can dissipate more than 1.7 kW of heat per square centimeter, and only 0.57 watts of pump power per square centimeter. This is significantly less than the power required for external etching cooling channels. "The observed cooling capacity exceeds one kilowatt per square centimeter, which is equivalent to a 50 times improvement in efficiency over external heat dissipation," the researchers said.
The Integrated microchip cooling has another advantage: it is cheaper than the cooling unit added externally. Because cooling micro channel and chip circuits can be directly introduced into semiconductors in production, the manufacturing cost is lower. This internally cooled microchip will make future electronic products more compact and energy-saving.
