Heat sinks are the standard when it comes to keeping components on your computer and virtually any other electronic device cool, but researchers may have found a way to cool your components without using these slotted blocks of metal. a Report from science daily (about Tom’s devices) highlights a new, more elegant approach to cooling, in which the entire device is coated in polycarbonate and copper.
If you’re unfamiliar with heatsinks, they’re usually made of copper or aluminum, two metals that act as conductors of heat. They are often fitted with multiple metal fins that dissipate and direct heat away from your machine’s main components to prevent overheating. The heat is then pushed out of the system by a nearby fan.
A group of researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of California, Berkeley published a study in nature electronics These replace the traditional “Conformal Copper Plating” and “Poly Electrical Dielectric Layer” heat sinks that are spread throughout the device.
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The researchers say this cooling method offers “very similar or even better performance” when compared to heatsinks. Because it also eliminates the need for a bulky piece of metal, this can free up a significant amount of space in electronic devices, which researchers claim can increase the device’s performance per unit volume by up to 740 percent. “With our coating, you can stack more boards of the same size than if you use traditional liquid- or air-cooled heat sinks,” explains the study.
Researchers are still evaluating the effectiveness of this coating and plan to test it on power supplies and graphics cards. It’s too early to tell if this type of technology will be something that PC parts manufacturers use to pre-package their components, or if you’ll have to do it yourself.
When the coating acts as a viable alternative to heat sinks, it can drastically change the appearance of electronics in ways I can’t even imagine. Maybe the paint could totally kill the heatsink. While I would miss the funky shields that manufacturers make to hide the heatsinks on motherboards, their absence could lead to more creative freedom with the look and functionality of a number of components.
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