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Technology Stocks : Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (2036)	10/25/2002 6:29:53 AM
From: w0z	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4345

Will they switch to water cooling then, too? They have been working on chip cooling technology for years and hold a number of patents. One of the most recent things I've seen is using ink-jet technology. BTW, what does the "SM" mean after your name? siliconstrategies.com Hewlett Packard applies ink-jet technology to spray cooling By Peter Clarke, Semiconductor Business News Aug 6, 2002 (6:15 AM) URL: siliconstrategies.com PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Hewlett Packard has applied techniques developed for ink-jet printing to the cooling of integrated circuits. The work could allow electronics equipment to achieve higher performance without the cost of immersive liquid conduction cooling. The principal of spray cooling of electronics is well known (see November 20, 2001, story. In principal it is akin to evaporating moisture to cool the human body. However unlike humans, electronic packages do not exude moisture and so the coolant tends to be sprayed on to packages and boards, where it heats up by conduction and evaporates. According to HP existing methods of spray cooling chips are prone to "pooling," with residual liquid left on the chip. This liquid forms a thermally insulating vapor bubble, which not only doesn't cool the chip but retains heat in that region causing chips to overheat and malfunction. HP's contribution to the technology is to apply the positional programmability of inkjet heads developed for printing as part of a feedback loop. A temperature map of the chip is sensed and the inkjet programmed to spray the chip with just enough liquid in those regions where evaporation can take place. With multiple functionalities on a single chip some regions will be hot and some relatively cool, so targeted spray cooling is required to avoid pooling, the company said. A video demonstration can be viewed over the internet here. The inkjet mechanism sprays a measured amount of dielectric liquid coolant onto the chip according to its heat level. The device controls the distribution, flow-rate and velocity of the liquid in much the same way inkjet printers control the placement of ink on a printed page. The liquid vaporizes on impact, cooling the chip, and the vapor is then passed through a heat exchanger and pumped back into a reservoir that feeds the spray device. Systems designers could use the technology to spray cool entire circuit boards, enabling denser, more powerful systems than are possible with many of today's alternative solutions, the company said. “At the chip level, we've taken an existing technology, the inkjet printing cartridge, and re-engineered it into an efficient, inexpensive cooling device for semiconductors,” said Cullen Bash, a research engineer at HP Labs, in a statement. “Our patented spray cooling technology could help enable future high-performance computing and communication devices.”