Sonny and ALL: Article...P2 causing thermal engineer's sleepless nights..
Pentium II Driving Change In PC System Design
Pentium II Driving Change In PC System Design 06/06/97 TAIPEI, TAIWAN, 1997 JUN 6 (NB) -- By Robert Clark. It's the plumbing of the PC industry, the unglamorous yet critical grunt work that makes sure your PC or notebook actually works.
The technical name is thermal engineering and its goal is to keep your PC cool while it powers through applications.
Because of the continuing increase in processing power, it is one job in the industry that gets harder and harder.
Chris Chapman, computer industry manager area for the world's biggest thermal engineering company, Aavid, said the arrival of the Pentium II has meant a sea change for the industry.
PII is 250 percent more powerful than its predecessor.
Major computer companies have produced a design for desktops but have yet to come up with a workable system deploying the PII in notebooks, he said.
"Thermal design will change with the Pentium II (notebook)," Chapman told Newsbytes at the Taipei Computex 97 show.
"Thermal solutions are driving system level design. You're not going to be able to design systems without taking into account system design," Chapman said.
He said Aavid was working with the majors on a system for the notebook, but he believed a new layout would be required.
"You don't want to hold up shipping product for a heat sink or a thermal solution, but if you don't have a thermal solution, you can't ship product."
Increasingly, thermal engineering design work is driven by extensive modelling, such as done by Aavid's sister company Fluent.
"It's important for companies to do their design work and modelling up-front," said Chapman.
He said thermal solutions would become increasingly important as applications and procession power grew bigger.
"Everyone wants video, 3D cards, sound cards, high-speed modems," he said.
Aavid, based in Laconia, New Hampshire, is globalizing its operations to be closer to the systems manufacture centers, with its own plants in Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.
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