Cutting-edge heat pipes for improved electronics cooling

“现代社会中许多最深刻的技术进步都是通过电子设备计算能力的不断增长而实现的。我们已经习惯了这些设备的功能每年都有显著的进步，沿着重量的减轻、寿命的提高和许多其他特征。这种技术推动使这些设备达到了它们所依赖的过程的物理极限。消费电子产品的热管理是一个日益突出的瓶颈。热管已成为笔记本电脑、高端手机和一些航空航天应用热管理的首选技术。然而，这项技术的发展速度还没有足够快，无法跟上现代计算机芯片的冷却要求，因此，现在的计算机芯片被编程为限制其计算能力，以避免热损伤。目前热管中使用的核心材料依赖于铜粉的热烧结，这是一种缓慢且能量密集的过程，并且不能满足现代电子设备的冷却要求。_Microfoam_是剑桥大学的一个分支，旨在优化和扩大一种颠覆性的新型金属泡沫，以占领快速增长的热管市场的份额。由_Microfoam_开发的热管技术是一种更快，能耗更低的制造工艺，可以制造具有新形状因子的更薄的热管，重要的是，可以逐步提高四十年来没有显着变化的商业设备的性能。"

"Many of the most profound technological advances in modern society have been enabled by a relentless increase in the computing power of electronic devices. We have become accustomed to significant yearly advances in the functionality of these devices, along with reduction in weight, improvements in lifetime, and many other features. This technological push has brought these devices right to the physical limits of the processes on which they rely. One particular bottleneck that is becoming increasingly prominent is the thermal management of consumer electronics. Heat pipes have become the technology of choice for the thermal management of laptops, high-end cell phones, and several aerospace applications. However, this technology has not evolved sufficiently fast to keep up with the cooling requirements of modern computer chips, and, as a result, computer chips are now programmed to limit their computing power to avoid thermal damage.The core material used in current heat pipes relies on thermal sintering of copper powder, which is a slow and energy intensive process and is unable to satisfy the cooling requirements of modern electronic devices. _Microfoam_, a University of Cambridge spin-off, seeks to optimize and scale-up a disruptive new metal foam to capture a share of the rapidly growing heat pipe market. The heat pipe technology developed by _Microfoam_ is a manufacturing process that is faster, less energy intensive, allows for the fabrication of thinner heat pipes with new form factors, and, importantly, enables a step-improvement in performance of commercial devices that have not seen significant changes in four decades."