New material draws heat away from hotspots much faster than current materials, which could lead to dramatic improvements in computer chip performance and energy efficiency
Working to address “hotspots” in computer chips that degrade their performance, UCLA engineers have developed a new semiconductor material, defect-free boron arsenide, that is more effective at drawing and dissipating waste heat than any other known semiconductor or metal materials.
This could potentially revolutionize thermal management designs for computer processors and other electronics, or for light-based devices like LEDs.
The study was recently published in Science and was led by Yongjie Hu, UCLA assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.
Computer processors have continued to shrink down to nanometer sizes where today there can be billions of transistors are on a single chip. This phenomenon is described under Moore’s Law, which predicts that the number of transistors on a chip will double about every two years. Each smaller generation of chips helps make computers faster, more powerful and able to do more work. But doing more work also means they’re generating more heat.
Managing heat in electronics has increasingly become one of the biggest challenges in optimizing performance. High heat is an issue for two reasons. First, as transistors shrink in size, more heat is generated within the same footprint. This high heat slows down processor speeds, in particular at “hotspots” on chips where heat concentrates and temperatures soar. Second, a lot of energy is used to keep those processors cool. If CPUs did not get as hot in the first place, then they could work faster and much less energy would be needed to keep them cool.
The UCLA study was the culmination of several years of research by Hu and his students that included designing and making the materials, predictive modeling, and precision measurements of temperatures.
The defect-free boron arsenide, which was made for first time by the UCLA team, has a record-high thermal conductivity, more than three-times faster at conducting heat than currently used materials, such as silicon carbide and copper, so that heat that would otherwise concentrate in hotspots is quickly flushed away.
“This material could help greatly improve performance and reduce energy demand in all kinds of electronics, from small devices to the most advanced computer data center equipment,” Hu said. “It has excellent potential to be integrated into current manufacturing processes because of its semiconductor properties and the demonstrated capability to scale-up this technology. It could replace current state-of-the-art semiconductor materials for computers and revolutionize the electronics industry.”
The study’s other authors are UCLA graduate students in Hu’s research group: Joonsang Kang, Man Li, Huan Wu, and Huuduy Nguyen.
In addition to the impact for electronic and photonics devices, the study also revealed new fundamental insights into the physics of how heat flows through a material.
“This success exemplifies the power of combining experiments and theory in new materials discovery, and I believe this approach will continue to push the scientific frontiers in many areas, including energy, electronics, and photonics applications,” Hu said.
Learn more: The heat is off: UCLA engineers develop world’s most efficient semiconductor material for thermal management
The Latest on: New materials discovery
[google_news title=”” keyword=”new materials discovery” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: New materials discovery
- Astronomers Discovered a Once-in-a-Lifetime ‘Sleeping Giant’ Black Holeon April 28, 2024 at 7:00 am
“No one was expecting to find a high-mass black hole lurking nearby, undetected so far,” Pasquale Panuzzo, an astronomer from the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) at the Observatoire de ...
- Red Hook fire: Man's smoldering body discovered in wreckage on ablaze boat near famous Brooklyn baron April 27, 2024 at 9:56 pm
The FDNY fire marshal is investigating what caused the fire, and a medical examiner is looking into the cause of death of the person found dead inside the boat ...
- Large fossil footprints point to discovery of new 'megaraptor' dinosaur: Studyon April 26, 2024 at 9:23 am
Large fossil footprints unearthed in China have led to the discovery of a "megaraptor" dinosaur, a relative of the velociraptor, a new study suggests.
- NASA Engineer Claims Major Discovery Of New Force In Physics, But Many Aren't Convincedon April 26, 2024 at 6:08 am
A former NASA engineer working on a propellant-less propulsion drive has claimed that the device can deliver enough thrust to achieve lift in Earth's gravity, an effect which should not take place ...
- New Material Realizes Superconductivity in the Quantum Hall Regimeon April 25, 2024 at 8:55 am
Researchers at The University of Manchester have made a noteworthy advancement in the field of superconductivity by employing a recently developed one-dimensional (1D) system to successfully achieve ...
- NASA engineer claims discovery of new force of nature that may solve space travelon April 23, 2024 at 7:01 pm
A former NASA engineer has claimed to have discovered what humans will use to traverse the solar system and beyond for the next 1,000 years.
- ‘Graceful’ creatures — named after stilettos — discovered as new species in Madagascaron April 23, 2024 at 9:04 am
→ Volcanic ocean creature — with 'long' legs — discovered in Japan. It's a new species → 'Flat'-headed creature — with multicolored eyes — discovered as new species in China → Nocturnal creature — a ...
- Accelerating the discovery of new materials via the ion-exchange methodon April 19, 2024 at 10:02 am
Tohoku University researchers have unveiled a new means of predicting how to synthesize new materials via the ion-exchange. Based on computer simulations, the method significantly reduces the time and ...
- New material for hydrogen storage confines this clean yet troublesome fuelon April 17, 2024 at 8:41 am
Skoltech scientists and their colleagues from Shubnikov Institute of Crystallography of RAS and research centers in China, Japan, and Italy have discovered a material for chemical storage of hydrogen ...
via Bing News