A group of researchers based in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of US Department of Energy announces the development of a new technique that will enable it in the future easy chilling of microprocessors with use of carbon nanotubes.
The technique they have developed is the one easy and friendly process, which means it can easily be escalated for mass production. Carbon nanotubes were selected in the present research because they have remarkable physical and chemical properties. These tubes can be easily formed by wrapping sheets graphene.
Modern microprocessor chips can reach extreme performance (overclocking), but at the same time they generate a lot of heat. The billions of transistors crammed into a few square centimeters can easily overcome thermowinees greater than the boiling point of water when they are not sufficiently cooled.
At this point, cooling is usually done with a combination of heat-conducting adhesive, a heat sink and a fan, or in more hitech situations with water-circulating hydraulic cooling circuits.
Using carbon nanotubes, the efficiency of future cooling systems will be far greater than that available with today's technology.
The team, led by physicist Frank Ogletree, found a way to use organic molecules as binders to attach carbon nanotubes to the metal surfaces of microprocessors with highly elastic covalent bonds.
The heat flow from the microprocessors tested improved by 600% (!!!) with the nanotubes, the group said. Attaching pipes to metal surfaces is done through gas vapor or chemical liquids at low temperature, which means that chip makers can easily adapt them to their production line.
Details of the new technique appear in the latest issue of Nature Communications.
