Santa Clara (CA) - Sun Microsystems has been issued a patent for a heatsink design using magneto-hydrodynamic technology in a closed fluid system.  Such a system migrates heat around via the internal liquid, but without mechanical pumping action.  This makes it very quiet and potentially very power and thermally efficient.


Just like the drive system used on the Russian submarine Red October in the movie "The Hunt for Red October," this type of magneto-hydrodynamic, or "caterpillar," is designed to use micro-magnetic fields to squeeze internal bladders which in turn create a pumping action.  While the end result is a real movement of liquid there are no moving parts to this design.  The bladder is squeezed remotely by magnetic fields and is, therefore, almost completely silent.



The purpose of the liquid is to take the heat away from the source and move it up very quickly to its larger surface area which can then expel the heat via metal/air surfaces just like traditional heatsinks.  The interesting part of this design, however, is the use of caterpillar pumping action coupled with a closed liquid system.

We are forced to ask why Sun would patent such a technology?  The answer may lie in their desire to implement larger scale fluid-transfer heatsink systems in servers.  These would cool not only the CPUs, but also chipsets, memory and possibly other peripherials.  The caterpillar system would use less power, be self contained, and could even be hooked up to the traditional motherboard fan connectors for power.  In addition, it could be controlled thermally allowing the pumping action to be turned on/off as needed via software algorithms which monitor the machine's heat state and act accordingly.  Such a system would also be more efficient at utilizing a wider surface airflow by moving the hotter heat spots around to cooler spots in the server, providing a greater degree of cooling in a smaller space.

The patent was filed in September 2005 and awarded in September 2007.  Only one person credited with this invention, Chien Ouyang from Sun Microsystems.

red october

Oct 03, 2007 07:36     

hahahaha "yeah right this has something to do with the red october's caterpillar..." *click* :D
nke report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Could this be used to cool standard PC processors?

Oct 03, 2007 08:33     

I'd happily swap my watercooling for this if it was really silent and as efficient.
paulie report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Patented, so the tech is locked to SUN machines?

Oct 03, 2007 08:35     

Does the patent mean that we'll never see the technology applied in standard desktop PCs?
paulie report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme

Oct 03, 2007 09:01     

I'd like to see this on the Ultra-120 Extreme. :) That'd make it an even better air cooler since it's the best air cooler (that I know of) out there.
GWolfman report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Less moving parts = more reliabilty

Oct 03, 2007 09:08     

I would note that in addition to the other advantages, with the only "moving" part being the bladder that gets squeezed magnetically, this might also be more reliable than fans and mechanical liquid pumps.
John Cronin report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

magnets?

Oct 03, 2007 11:36     

I'm wondering if this is a shielded device or not. I'm thinking you wouldn't want magnets next to your cpu although I suppose that is how all the fans work anyway....
Steven report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Not sure how useful this is

Oct 03, 2007 11:49     

The thermal conductivity of copper far exceeds that of water (by a factor of 800x or so). Why bother with an infeerior material and just use heat pipes? The advantage of water cooling is that you can mount a HUGE radiator wherever you want whereas a board mounted solution can be awkward. I'll admit thoug it's got the 'cool' factor.
Meegus report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Cool and Quite?

Oct 03, 2007 14:43     

It would be nice to have on ones pc. It would eliminate at least one fan and make it quieter.
TomLeeM/BigWarpGuy report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

What makes this better than a heat pipe? It also h...

Oct 03, 2007 21:37     

What makes this better than a heat pipe? It also has no moving parts and requires no power (using the heat of the object being cooled to operate). It quickly moves heat to cooler parts of the sink, improving efficiency. This wouldn't necessarily get rid of any fans either. All of the heat has to be transferred to the air around the PC at some point, whether it's water or air cooled. The fan is useful because more air comes in contact with the heatsink over a period of time. Natural convection produces airflow as well, but it is usually way less flow than even a weak fan. I guess there's radiation taking away some heat too, but it's pretty negligible.

surplus_wit report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0