Thermal Management
The ever increasing computational power of modern electronics entails an associated increase in heat generation in the chip. Microprocessors without a thermal management system are easily capable of melting themselves. Exotic thermal management systems such as liquid cooling allow high thermal power densities but require complex implementations. The DRL seeks to build an improved air-cooled heat sink to allow this cost effective technology to keep pace with the cooling demands of the advancing electronics industry.
The Device Research Lab, in collaboration with Prof. John G. Brisson in Mechanical Engineering, Prof. Jeffrey H. Lang in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Lockheed Martin, is working to develop a new heat sink with reduced thermal resistance and reduced power demand in a compact volume.
The Fully Integrated Air Pumped Heat Exchanger (Phump) will achieve its goals by incorporating heat pipes (an enclosed system that has a very high effective thermal conductivity by generating a two-phase flow in a working fluid contained in the system.) into the extended surface of the heat sink as well as incorporating fan rotors along each wall of the extended surface to maximize heat transfer.
This research is supported by DARPA
