Ionic Winds Chilling Your Computer

Iddo Genuth writes to mention The Future of Things online magazine is reporting that Kronos Advanced Technologies in cooperation with Intel and the University of Washington claims to have developed a new type of ultra-thin, silent cooling technology for processors. The piece covers many of the cooling technologies currently available, how their new corona discharge cooler works, and a short interview with several of the key team members.

dupe?

[radicalnerd]

I don't understand how this device, which uses an "electrostatic fluid accelerator," is different from this [slashdot.org] "electrostatic precipitator."

hmm

[Swimport]

Sounds a lot like this: http://inventgeek.com/Projects/IonCooler2/Overview .aspx [inventgeek.com]

im sure that discharge is perfectly healthy!

[Anonymous Coward]

no need to worry about spewing a bunch of ionized air particles all over the place.

http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/ozonegen.html [epa.gov]

Another numberless article

[Pedrito]

Where are the numbers? How much heat does it dissipate? Everything is vague: "it can cool modern cpus" okay, well, I can run a modern CPU at 100MHZ if I want and then it won't require any cooling. An article like this without any specifics is hardly Slashdot material. This is regular news material, if that.

Snakeoil, Mostly

[Total_Wimp]

There is no special cooling effect being harnessed that's any more complicated than blowing on your soup. All this does is move air. If the comparison of various air purifiers I read is at all accurate, it doesn't even do that very well (Ionic Breezes faired poorly due to poor air flow).

This does have a place in mobile computing because fans have pretty strict size and shape limitations. Also, silence is golden to many. Other than that, a fan and heatsink should offer far superior performance.

TW

Ozone

[Anonymous Coward]

I have worked with tesla coils for years, I can tell you this is like begging for a headache! That thing would make a nice amount of ozone, and what does ozone do to living things and metals boys and girls?

Matter of scale

[Kelson]

While ionizing "air cleaners" can produce enough ozone to cause problems, those are intended to move air and particles around an entire room. This only needs to move enough air to cool a small processor. I'd be more worried about the effect on plastic or rubber components inside the computer.

Re:double entendre

[Anonymous Coward]

Seconded. With so many physics inaccuracies in the 'overview' alone, one becomes dubious.

Exibit A: "Modern heatsinks are incapable of effectively cooling high-end CPUs, not to mention high-end GPUs, without the assistance of a fan." Tell that to owners of Tuniq towers.

B: "The most popular method for cooling modern computers is based on pushing air using fans. This method is sometimes combined with passive cooling,..." Sometimes? Anyone tried pointing a fan at a chip and praying recently?

C: "Active cooling is much more efficient than passive cooling alone and is also relatively cheap." By what measure of efficiency? Not power consumption. I assume they mean efficacious.

D: "Water has a higher specific heat capacity as well as better thermal conductivity relative to that of air (meaning water can transfer heat over greater distances more efficiently than air)". No, that's not what that means and the bogus interpretation isn't even accurate (never mind precise). Tell that to a jet engine exhaust. "higher specific heat capacity as well as better thermal conductivity" means it can soak up more heat per unit volume, and it can pull that heat from a smaller area than in the case of air. Physics 001.

Then they describe what sounds like "point a fan at a chip and pray". Unless ionised gases have some miraculous thermal properties I have never heard of, how do they get around the surface area problem. Aha, from TFA, they're targeting mobile devices. So these things have pissant cooling power. Anyone else concerned about putting ionised gases (aka free radicals) near their face? Advertising bumph. Case closed. How sad.

Give John Sokol the credit

[Jonathan Walther]

Back in 2002 when John Sokol was designing the first, and still the most efficient silent computer, we discussed the ionic air cooling. I think it was Bill Drury who first mentioned it. We put it off as a possible future direction to go. It didn't seem like it would be nearly as productive a direction as the thermal ground technology John developed. Time has proven John right; his thermal plane and thermal ground patents will revolutionize the computer industry fairly soon now. As a director of Nisvara, I can't reveal more than that at this time. But if you want a silent computer with no moving parts and even lower power consumption than these "coronal discharge" guys are claiming, get in touch with John Sokol.

Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

[asuffield]

First, for corona discharge to occur at all requires thousands of volts of energy.

Buuu! Energy is not measured in volts. Attempts at debunking things while failing to make basic electrical sense are not impressive. Try harder next time.

Re:double entendre

[Michael Woodhams]

The ion cooler fan casemod is linked to in comments hanging off the article.
version 1 [inventgeek.com]
version 2 [inventgeek.com]