News Nextreme offers micro-Peltiers

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/01/11/nextreme_offers_micro-peltiers/1

South Carolina-based start-up Nextreme Incorporated is trialling a technology that uses on-chip micro-miniaturised Peltier coolers to target hotspots and, amazingly, generate electricity.

 

very interesting. Any figures on how efficient it's electricity production is? I'm envisioning a world where waste heat from a myriad of devices are recycle in a more efficient manner.

I've never used a peltier on a computer though, off the top of my head it's extremely inefficient in that you needed quite a bit of juice to power the tech and more to cool it. Might as well kill the middle man and just watercool the chip, although I guess they were the step beyond WC for Over clocking, but I never got that far

 

to be honest, i don't see how this would really help. peltier coolers end up producing more heat in the end. maybe the processor itself might be a tad cooler, but the requirements for airflow and the heatsink would be more demanding.

 

the only concern I have aside from those stated above is: what about interference from the current generated by the Peltiers? is it possible that they could interfere with other components of the die or short circuit with other parts?

 

"generates electricity"? Surely as soon as you start drawing current from a TEC, its effective thermal resistance increases? You can EITHER use a powered TEC to pump heat, OR you can use the heat differential to generate power. If you could do both at the same time you'd be violating thermodynamics, which is, to put it mildly, a little bit difficult.

I guess you could have it working in a switchable mode, where it was powered to pump heat when the chip got towards its thermal limit, and use it to generate a miniscule amount of power (ultimately never more than a tiny fraction of the chip's power draw) when the chip was less hot, but really I think the value is in efficiently extracting heat from hotspots using it as a powered pump.

 

This is the part I was confused by and wasn't really explained well.

It's making a claim that its more than 100% efficient.

 

lol. look, what you do with the laws of thermo dynamics in the privacy of your own home is best left there and not aired on public discussion boards.