Cool Chips

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is seeking technologies to cool electronic computer chips.

According to a DARPA statement issued today:

The increased density of electronic components and subsystems in military electronic systems exacerbates the thermal management challenges facing engineers. The military platforms that host these systems often cannot physically accommodate the large cooling systems needed for thermal management, meaning that heat can be a limiting factor for performance of electronics and embedded computers.

DARPA introduced the Intrachip/Interchip Enhanced Cooling (ICECool) program in June 2012 to explore 'embedded' thermal management. The premise of ICECool is to bring microfluidic cooling inside the substrate, chip or package, including thermal management in the earliest stages of electronics design. One track of the program, ICECool Fundamentals, has already begun basic research into microfabrication and evaporative cooling techniques. Under the new ICECool Applications Track, DARPA now seeks performers from the electronics and high-performance computing (HPC) communities to demonstrate microfluidic cooling in monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) and embedded HPC modules.

"DARPA wants two things from this solicitation: ICECool concepts and techniques that can be readily integrated into the commercial off-the-shelf supply chain, and development and implementation of electrical-thermal-mechanical co-design techniques," said Avram Bar-Cohen, DARPA program manager. "To get there, we believe those already working with MMICs and HPC modules can add microfluidic cooling to established technologies. This is an open solicitation, and I encourage researchers within these communities and others to present their ideas."

View the full DARPA statement.