Two of the big problems with which high performance computer systems face daily refrigeration Who use a laser To eliminate heat that the chips.
Las Technologies of refrigeration The traditional have a series of advantages and disadvantages, the air systems are generally cheaper but in turn less effective than those which use liquid cooling, while refrigeration to immersion is one of the best that can be found but requires a quantity of space too high with a very large investment. This is why there are those looking for ways to eliminate the problems that these methods have when creating a more effective in all aspects.
A new refrigeration method that seeks to convert the heat of chips into energy
There are many companies that focus all their efforts on improving certain aspects that have the computer systems that prevent them from reaching the greatest potential they have, one of the lightest is currently linked to temperatures. For this reason, there are startups such as Maxwell Labs that seek to change the way things work, and this company works with the support of Sandia national laboratories in a new technology that wants to cool high performance computer equipment via lasers.
The approach of this new technology is very different from the one you may think, generally most of the cases in which an intense beam is projected on a surface tends to warm up, but although it seems that it depends on the material. In this case, the technique uses cold plates created from a compound called arseniuro (GAAS) ultra pure gallium which has the opposite, when they receive a targeted laser beam with a specific wavelength, it manages to eliminate the heat from the places where it is projected.
To achieve this, the project aims to create a series of GAAS semiconductors which are placed directly in the hot spots of the processors while the microscopic models which are in the semiconductors themselves guide lasers to the areas in which the heat points are concentrated. This technique in addition to precisely eliminating heat also has another advantage and could make it possible to resume the thermal energy extracted to convert it again into electrical energy.
But all is not good news, because one of the big problems of this type of compound is the price it has, the manufacture of platforms of this material would cost about 100 times more than creating them from silicon, because the price of a 200 mm slice would be 5,000 dollars while one of the same size created with silicon costs approximately 5 dollars. GAAS transistors cannot be integrated in a simple way into a silicon brochure because it is necessary to use a technique that involves a fairly large investment.
Obviously, the price as well as the complexity of development are some of the reasons why it is a technology that seeks to focus on refrigerate equipment of High performance Like those found in data centers. According to Maxwell Labs, the first functional prototype of this cooling technique would arrive in autumn this year while its general presentation would be scheduled by the end of 2027.
