World's First Liquid Metal-Based CPU Cooler

Slashdot It! Denmark-based Danamics has developed its first product, and it looks pretty special. The LM10 is a liquid metal based CPU cooler that combines liquid metal with an electromagnetic pump. It is claimed to be the world’s best performing air-cooler and have cooling capabilities that exceed those of most water-cooling systems. 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. The LM10 does all of those. 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. 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. Liquid metal has numerous key advantages compared to competing technologies, such as water-cooling or traditional air cooling. By utilising the unique properties of liquid metal, the LM10 has the lowest thermal resistance of any air-cooler in the market. The cooling capabilities exceeds most watercoolers in a single device. Compared to competing solutions, the 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 - the LM10 cooler can be mounted in minutes. Liquid metal brings another advantage besides its efficiency. The properties of liquid metal make the use of an electromagnetic pump possible. Danamics’ patent pending multi-string pump delivers high flow combined with a very low power-draw of less than 1W. And compared to watercooling pumps, the electromagnetic pump used in LM10 cooler 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. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare