Ion winds is a kind of cooling we’ve discussed on a couple of occasions before. Even though we enjoy the ultimate kind of cooling in the form of liquid or solid gases, when it comes to our everyday computers we want them to run cool with more convenient, but most of all, quiet types of cooling. Since ion wind, also known as corona wind, generates no noise what-so-ever, it’s a kind of cooling we really like. Simply because there are no moving or mechanical parts, instead the wind is generated with the help of a flow of electrons. But what if someone designed an ion wind cooler so small it can be used on-chip?
That’s exactly what Thorrn Micro Technologies has done. With support form the National Science Foundation and six years of research, they’ve come up with a solid-state micro-sized fan, which is quarter the size of a regular fan and pushes three times as much air. The fan was unveiled to the public at Annual Semiconductor Thermal Measurement, Modeling and Management Symposium.
Much of the research was put into controlling the micro-scale electrical discharges, to make sure it produces as much wind as possible without any sparks or arcing. The fan can produce airflow up to 2.4m/s, a figure which is impossible to achieve with a mechanical fan of a similar size. The cooler could also be integrated on-chip in the future.
The company is very enthusiastic about the new fan and claims it to be the biggest advancement in PC cooling since heatpipes. The fan is ready to be tested for actual use in laptops and other mobiles devices. The technology can be used to cool a 25W chip with a device smaller than 1cm³. It might even be that we will see other fans, regular table fans, using the technology.
Thorn Micro Technologies aren’t the first trying to cool laptops using ion winds though. Back in January of last year we reported about Intel and Kronos trying to do the exact same thing.
