The heat sink could finally have a much thinner competitor
Heatsinks are the default when it comes to keeping components on your computer and almost any other electronic device cool, but researchers may have found a way to cool your components without using these slotted metal bits. and report from science days (by Tom’s devices) emphasizes a new, more elegant approach to cooling that involves coating the entire device with polycarbonate and copper.
If you are not familiar with heat sinks, they are usually made of copper or aluminum, two metals that are used as heat conductors. They often come with a number of metal fins that pull and dissipate heat away from the main components of your device to prevent them from overheating. The heat is then pushed out of the system using an adjacent fan.
A group of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of California, Berkeley published a study in nature electronics which replaces traditional heat sinks with a “matching copper plating” and a “poly-insulating layer” spread over the entire device.
Researchers say this method of cooling gives you “very similar, or even better performance” compared to a heat sink. Because it also eliminates the need for a bulky piece of metal, it can free up a significant amount of space inside electronic devices, which researchers say can increase the device’s power per unit volume by up to 740 percent. The study explains: “You can stack more printed circuit boards in the same size when using our coating, compared to if you use a conventional liquid or air heatsink.”
Researchers are still evaluating the effectiveness of this coating and plan to test it on power units and graphics cards. It’s too early to say if this type of technology will be something that computer parts manufacturers will pre-soak with their components or if you have to do it yourself.
If the coating really did serve as a viable alternative to the heat sink, it could drastically change the look of electronics in ways I couldn’t even comprehend. Maybe the paint could completely kill the heat sink. While I will miss the cool shields that cooling manufacturers create on motherboards, their absence will likely lead to more creative freedom in form and function for a variety of components.
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