Using electrodes placed close to one another on a computer chip, the new technique generates electrically charged atoms that ionize the air, leading to an imbalance of charges that creates bolts of nano-lightning.

Tiny bolts of lightning may create wind currents small enough to cool computers of the future, say researchers at Purdue University who have filed for a patent on the ingenious system.

"This is a groundbreaking idea," said Purdue mechanical engineering professor Suresh Garimella.

When Lightning Strikes Gold

With more circuitry and components, future computer chips will generate more heat. Researchers have suggested using liquid coolants, but they pose challenges the nano-lightning method may avoid.

"The key attribute of this work is that it sticks with air cooling while possibly providing the same rate of cooling as a liquid," Garimella said.

Heat sinks that contain fins to dissipate heat currently cool most computer chips. Bulky fans create air that carries away the heat.

"You need an external means of creating air," Garimella told NewsFactor.



Using electrodes placed close to one another on a computer chip, the new technique generates electrically charged atoms that ionize the air, leading to an imbalance of charges that creates bolts of nano-lightning.

"To create lightning you need tens of kilovolts, but we do it with 100 volts or less," Garimella said. "In simple terms, we are generating a kind of lightning on a nano-scale here."

Rapidly switched from one electrode to the next, the ionizing voltages form ionic clouds that move and produce a cooling breeze.

"They are switching at the right frequency so that the ion cloud is constantly moving forward," said Purdue doctoral graduate Daniel J. Schlitz, who formed Thor Micro Technologies to commercialize the new cooling system. "As the ions move forward, they make repeated collisions with neutral molecules, producing the breeze."

"The switching itself is a well-known concept from physics, but we are the first to bring about ion pumping on a micro-scale like this," added Garimella, who also directs Purdue's Cooling Technologies Research Center.

Weather or Not

Taking a cue from the weatherman to cool computers is "a very novel idea," Garimella said. "It is certainly one of the most inventive things I've ever been involved with."

Right now, however, "it's a laboratory-scale phenomenon," Schlitz said.

Eventually, the researchers envision cooling devices small enough to fit as an additional layer on an individual chip.

"The entire thing would sit on, and be integrated into, a chip that is 10 millimeters by 10 millimeters," Garimella said.

Once perfected, the method will "introduce a major new cooling technology for laptop and desktop computers that is quiet, low-cost and reliable," said Purdue mechanical engineering professor Timothy Fisher.

"People have been trying to extend the limits of air cooling for years and years," Fisher said.

The National Science Foundation, Semiconductor Research Corporation and the Purdue Research Foundation funded the research.

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