14 DAY TRIAL // A prototype device that cools a computer's processor by creating a wind effect made of charged particles, or ions, was developed by researchers from the Purdue University in Indiana, United States in collaboration with the chip manufacturing company Intel.
According to the researchers, the ionic wind that travels across the processor's surface has a much better efficiency than traditional cooling solutions that rely on air or liquid to transfer a part of the generated heat away from the chip. A news site related to BBC cited Timothy Fisher, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, who is one of the researchers that worked on the ionic wind-cooling prototype. "In computers and electronics, power equals heat, so we need to find ways to manage the heat generated in more powerful laptops and handheld computers".
Liquid and air based cooling devices, while simple to design and construct, have a quite low efficiency, especially the air based solutions where the air molecules nearest to the chip can become stationary under the pressure applied by the revolving fan blades, slowing down the cooling effect. The ionic wind cooling effect works towards removing the stationary air molecules as it pumps over the processing unit charged particles that are dragged to the sides of the CPU by applying a small voltage on a metal wire. Combining this technique with a conventional air fan resulted in a much better cooling effect as all the ionized particles were in motion and the stationary problem was solved.
The cooling effect using this setup has a 250 percent efficiency increase over the traditional air fan. This increase in efficiency is very unusual for cooling devices that are still using air or another kind of particles to remove heat. According to professor Suresh Garimella, from Purdue University, "Other experimental cooling-enhancement approaches might give you a 40% or a 50% improvement. A 250% improvement is quite unusual". If the miniaturization of the cooling device is successful and it passes all the trials of a new product, the ionic cooling device could hit the market in about three years.