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Liquid Metal CPU Heatsink Beats Water Cooling
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Jul 20, 2008 08:19 PM
from the but-as-a-beverage-it-sucks dept.
from the but-as-a-beverage-it-sucks dept.
unassimilatible writes "Bios Magazine is reporting that the world's first commercially available liquid-metal based CPU cooler is about to ship. Danamics, a Danish company, claims that its LM-10 outperforms standard air-cooled heatsinks and most watercooled systems with a mere 1W power draw. 'The liquid metal is a key component in Danamics cooling systems. Liquid metal has two major advantages when cooling high power density heat sources: Firstly it has superior thermo physical properties that decrease temperature — and temperature non-uniformity — on die and across chips. Secondly, the electrical properties of the liquid metal enables efficient, reliable and ultra compact electromagnetic pumping without the use of moving parts, shafts, seals, etc.' Awesome technology, if it actually works and is affordable. The submitter requests that the moderators terminate all T-1000 jokes."
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Toxicity? (Score:5, Interesting)
And just how good for the environment is this liquid metal? Or for your health?
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Informative)
From my Firehose post:
It's mostly likely using Field's metal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field%27s_metal), Rose's metal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_metal), Galinstan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galinstan), or one of the other low-melting point low toxicity alloys, NOT mercury.
Parent
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Funny)
I think the liquid metal is their server.
Parent
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Informative)
For the lazy:
Field's metal [wikipedia.org]
Rose metal [wikipedia.org]
Galinstan [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's being used to cool CPUs, I don't think it needs to be liquid at room temperature, since the area near most modern CPUs is considerably hotter than that! If your CPU is running at room temperature, you probably don't need much cooling (and if you do, you're going to need a much more elaborate system than merely one based on a liquid metal, since a passive heat-sink isn't going to take you anywhere below room temperature).
If the liquid metal you're using for cooling tends to freeze at room temperature, that's going to present a few engineering challenges, but I don't think they're insurmountable, and, given the relative rarity of metals that are liquid at room temperature (and the unpleasant nature of some of them, e.g. mercury) it may well be worth it.
Pure gallium [wikipedia.org] melts at body temperature and is generally considered non-toxic. If it weren't for the expense, it might be a decent option itself. That said, Galinstan does sound like a promising option, though one of its ingredients (indium) is even more expensive than gallium, which could be a problem. Tin's still relatively cheap, though. :)
Parent
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_metal_embrittlement [wikipedia.org]
Hope they figured this out or mitigate it somehow.
Parent
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Informative)
Mod parent up - I was about to post on the same lines. Looks like all the likely candidates contain gallium, and gallium is not known to play nice to other metals - corrodes them etc.
Parent
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Interesting)
NaK melts at -13 C. It could be that in principle. It would burn if released, but in the intended use it should be safe enough.
Parent
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Informative)
Galistan is liquid to -19 degrees C....
Parent
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Informative)
Use a sealed system.
Galinstan can be pumped via magneto-hydrodynamic action throughout the sealed system- no moving parts and intrinsically nothing to wear out. Oh, and you very definitely do not want to use Aluminum in the system. It alloys away aluminum like Mercury does- disintegrates it FAST.
I don't think you'd want to use flex hoses, but a pre-built, rigid cooling system, using glass or certain copper alloys known to not be directly attacked by Galinstan like aluminum is and purge the air out and charge what few air gaps you have with argon, you SHOULD have a gem of a system. While it's thermal capacity is lower than water or mineral oil (Yes, I've done my own tinkering- including toying with an idea or two with Galinstan; unfortunately the stuff's just insanely expensive to have the volume of metal I'd have needed to do the idea- something on the order of about $1500 or so in the stuff...) it's thermal conductivity is right on up there with Copper and it effectively yanks the heat right on out if you've got enough heat exchange surface to dump the heat to. If you've got extremely high density heat dissipation, this might actually be an answer.
Parent
Re:Toxicity? (Score:4, Funny)
Galinstan. One of the lesser known elements of the 'Axis of Evil'!! (Metallic Substances Edition)
Fire ze missiles!
Parent
Autolinkifying URLs (was Re:Toxicity?) (Score:4, Informative)
how about a link to the firefox extension that autolinkifies plain text urls?
That would be Linkification [mozilla.org], now at version 1.3.5 and Firefox 3.0.x compatible.
Parent
Depends... (Score:5, Interesting)
Too much of anything can kill you. Water, salt, mercury, oxygen etc etc. They probably use some alloy with an extremely low melting temperature. The article is a bit short on the specifics.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If your computer was that cold, wouldn't the purpose of the heat sink be pretty much negated until it thawed?
Re:Schmoo Schmoo (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah alright how about her [wikipedia.org]?
Interestingly wikipedia claims she was born aged 55, which explains a lot.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How many do you consider to be "several"?
I remember some kind of Sci-Fi movie? show/book? where a group of men were used by the female inhabitants of a planet for sex and pro-creation.
The men aged prematurely, were a husk of their former selves and begged to be released from their ordeal.
Is that what you want?
Re:Toxicity? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
No T-1000 jokes, huh, submitter? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No T-1000 jokes, huh, submitter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:No T-1000 jokes, huh, submitter? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:No T-1000 jokes, huh, submitter? (Score:5, Informative)
http://slashdot.org/my/comments [slashdot.org]
(skip down most of the way towards the bottom)
Comment Post Mode
Select: Plain Old Text
I really don't understand why it isn't the /. default
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Put your posts in 'Plain old text' mode, and they're done for you.
Like this!
And you can still use html tags
like that br
Banned in California? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Banned in California? (Score:5, Funny)
I can see the Governator imposing a ban on the import of this product...
Warning:
This product contains chemicals known by the State of California to cause cancer and/or the rise of cyborg assassins bent on enslaving mankind.
Parent
No T-1000 jokes? (Score:4, Funny)
What metal? (Score:4, Interesting)
How odd that the article doesn't even hint at what the metal is. I wonder why not?
Sodium cooling (Score:5, Informative)
" Awesome technology, if it actually works and is affordable."
It works. It's worked for decades under the sea cooling nuclear reactors and in piston aircraft engines.
http://www.enginehistory.org/air-cooled_cylinders_3.htm [enginehistory.org]
" During his early years at McCook Field the ever-ingenious Sam Heron had observed the characteristics of various sodium compounds which are normally used in heat-treating operations. These materials are solid at room temperature and become liquid at engine operating temperatures. He observed that since these compounds wet the surface of steel alloys readily and transfer heat very well, their use should be effective in extending the life of exhaust valves. The ancestor of our present-day sodium-cooled valves had arrived, thanks to Mr. Heron, and almost ninety years later we are still enjoying the benefits of his ingenuity though even today such valves are not completely fault free."
Also, it's not terribly expensive. Just don't go hacking into the reservoir or any of the tubes with a saw, mmmkay?
--
BMO
Re:Sodium cooling (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just add som potassium (Score:4, Informative)
An alloy of sodium (Na) and potassium (K) is liquid from 12.6 to 785 C
it is cheap and wets most metals (good heat transfer)
it is a little reactive, so recycling would need some special handling.
Parent
Re:Just add som potassium (Score:4, Informative)
it is a little reactive, so recycling would need some special handling.
A little reactive? It would burn pretty violently if simply exposed to air, and EXPLODE if it came in contact with water. And either event would produce highly corrosive byproducts.
Parent
Re: A little reactive? (Score:3, Funny)
Could be worse. Could be cesium [theodoregray.com].
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes indeed. That website triggered positively explosive reactions in my retinas. :(
I'll be sending you a bill.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A little reactive? It would burn pretty violently if simply exposed to air, and EXPLODE if it came in contact with water. And either event would produce highly corrosive byproducts.
Where do I sign up?!
What is liquid metal? (Score:4, Informative)
Google is being of limited help here. The main link I'm finding is to Liquidmetal Technologies [liquidmetal.com], which is producing Liquidmetal and Vitreloy -- zirconium-based alloys which are amorphous in structure (hence the "liquid" in the name) but are otherwise solid in appearance and use (and much stronger than stainless steel or titanium). This is not something one would be pumping through heat tubes to cool a CPU.
Obviously, mercury is out due to its toxicity. My initial thought was they're using metal bits in a suspension, but I have doubts as to whether this would actually do anything useful. Deeper searching yields this page [scitoys.com], which describes a gallium/indium/tin alloy which is liquid at room temperature. Wikipedia'a entry for gallium [wikipedia.org] concurs, saying, "It has been suggested that a liquid gallium-tin alloy could be used to cool computer chips in place of water."
Any materials experts out there care to comment?
No liquid metal jokes? (Score:5, Funny)
"That's not liquid metal, that's a mimetic poly alloy!"
"It's as if millions of nano cpus suddenly cried out in terror and were silenced"
"Mime or mime not. There is no try."
"T-1000, I am your mould."
Magnetic pump? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that exactly what a heat pipe does?
We, Denmark (Score:5, Funny)
You give us Bush, Microsoft and Michael Jackson.
Bad deal, Denmark thinks.
Been there, done that (Score:4, Funny)
The cool thing was, power was so cheap (via government subsidies called "grants") that we eventually upgraded the cluster to run a realtime terrain modeling system that was supposed to identify a path through a network of roads that allowed for the highest average speed, given speed limits and road lengths. The terrain modeling part would determine a way to maximize the time spent going downhill.
DARPA initially supported us, and were going to upgrade our status, give us clearances, etc. but they eventually killed our funding after Ford found out we were using a Fiero and complained about our physical safety while operating the system. But man, DARPA know of some *way* cool ghost towns and low-traffic road networks.
The preceding is a work of fiction written by an easily-distracted procrastinator in a severe time crunch
Re:Been there, done that (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Been there, done that (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
"Moderators terminate all T-1000 jokes" (Score:3, Funny)
Don't worry. They'll be back.
Not a joke. (Score:5, Funny)
"The submitter requests that the moderators terminate all T-1000 jokes."
The only way to do that would be to wait until the thread becomes stale, assess people who made the jokes, and then send back a cybernetic soldier to kill their mothers.
'Article' is ripped from the product website: (Score:5, Interesting)
Click on Technology. Then click background:
Cooling of semiconductor hot-spots has developed into a demanding task. In recent years the high power density of microchips has increased rapidly, thereby increasing temperature and temperature non -uniformity on die and across chips. The drive for extremely low thermal resistance if further accelerated by the trend towards smaller system enclosures which has made the cooling task even more difficult. This gives the cooling companies a new challenge. To create cooling devices that is reliable, efficient and compact. Danamics does all of those.
Then click Pump:
Electromagnetic pumps have been used for decades and have been seen in a variety of applications. From space crafts and satellites, on nuclear-driven surface warships and submarines and also in land based nuclear reactors and industrial applications. In space, at sea, at land and now also as a key element for hot spot cooling. An electromagnetic pump has several advantages over typical mechanical pump designs. It contains no moving parts, shafts, seals, etc., emits no noise or vibration, has unlimited MTBF and suffers no performance degrading over time. Typically electromagnetic pumps have had the drawback of a high current requirement. The Danamics patent pending multi-string electromagnetic pump eliminates this limitation and delivers a high flow with minimal current input. Due to the small size and power requirements, the multi-string pump makes a liquid metal cooler suitable for use in smaller applications such as home computers, workstations and even laptops.
Then click Liquid Metal:
The liquid metal is a key component in Danamics cooling systems. Liquid metal has two major advantages when cooling high power density heat sources: Firstly it has superior thermo physical properties that decrease temperature - and temperature nonâ"uniformity - on die and across chips. Secondly the electrical properties of the liquid metal enables efficient, reliable and ultra compact electromagnetic pumping without the use of moving parts, shafts, seals, etc.
Then click Benefits:
Liquid Metal has numerous key advantages compared to competing technologies, such as water-cooling or traditional air cooling. The most important ones are: Ultimate performance Danamics LM10 is the worldâ(TM)s best performing air-cooler. By utilizing the unique properties of liquid metal, the cooler has the lowest thermal resistance of any air-cooler in the market. The cooling capabilities exceeds most watercoolers in a single device. Easy mounting Compared to competing solutions, the Danamics LM10 is a true all-in-one product. There are no external housings, large reservoirs or bulky radiators. With liquid metal cooling you have true performance in a compact, self-contained unit. This makes mounting a breeze and the Danamics LM10 cooler can be mounted in minutes. No moving parts The superior liquid metal brings another advantage besides its efficiency. The properties of liquid metal make the use of an electromagnetic pump possible. Danamicsâ(TM) patent pending multi-string pump delivers high flow combined with a very low power-draw of less than 1W. No noise and no vibration Compared to watercooling pumps, the electromagnetic pump used in Danamics LM10 cooler has numerous benefits. It is hermetically sealed and has no moving parts, which means that no noise or vibration is added to the system from the electromagnetic pump. Also the pump is orientation independent, which ensures maximum flexibility for users and system integrators. Innovative technology Danamics LM10 is built from the ground up using innovative technology. The combination of liquid metal and an electromagnetic pump is all new in commercial cooling devices, bringing
Re:The obvious choice... (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to a person who (a) thinks mercury and bromine are the only two liquid metals and (b) thinks bromine is a metal at all?
rj
Parent
Re:The obvious choice... (Score:5, Funny)
lol Every stick Bromine+Al?
Your typical Aluminium (Aluminum) heatsink will burn ferociously, spitting white hot molten Al during assembly! hahahahahaha!
Parent
Re:Liquid metal (Score:5, Informative)
Sillicon isnt a metal. :)
Parent