MIT Develops a Cooling Technology of the Future
I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? "Plastics."
In terms of cooling, we presently use our massive (and impressive-looking) heatsinks made of heat-conductive metals all in hopes of drawing as much heat as possible away from our chips.
Researchers at MIT have made a notable breakthrough in transforming polyethylene, the most widely used polymer, into a material that conducts heat just as well as most metals while retaining its properties as an electrical insulator.
Another special property of this transformed polyethylene is that it conducts heat very efficiently in just one direction, which makes it highly suitable for cooling a computer chip.
While discoveries such as this are often in an infancy stage that makes it just dream material for computer enthusiasts, the added promise in this latest breakthrough is recognition and interest from Intel.
Ravi Prasher, an engineer at Intel, took notice of the work and characterized the researchers' work as "phenomenal," and added that "this is a very significant finding."
- mit ,
- cooling ,
- polyethylene ,
- heatsinks ,
- overclocking
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Lighter heat sinks might mean lighter laptops. This could spread to almost all heatsinks on a computer RAM, Graphics, Power Supply. This could be good. Ill wait a year to see if it catches on...
Lighter heat sinks might mean lighter laptops. This could spread to almost all heatsinks on a computer RAM, Graphics, Power Supply. This could be good. Ill wait a year to see if it catches on...
It'll be more than a year before this technology is even proven to be useful. Then another few years getting it funded and ready for mass development. I wouldn't expect it within 3.
heat conducting plastics . . . adds new meaning to the phrase "this notebook may cook your lap".
just asking... it's plastic: won't it melt if your system gets hot enough? Or does it only melt at temperatures above ~150C?
some special plastics can handle temps over 400c
not sure how their alterantions change the properties of polyethylene, but normally the melting point is typically in the range 120 to 130 °C which is kinda cutting it a little close. But I guess the PC would shutdown or lower clock speeds before reaching these temps - or simply crash.
I find the idea of its thermal conductivity being unidirectional very interesting however!
that would be great I only hope that it'll be more efficient that copper and we have cooling revolution ^_^.