An Introduction to Extreme Temperatures Electronics
Electronic devices when in use generate heat.These are normally equipped to dissipate this heat, but fail to do so completely.Unfortunately, circuits on a computer chip have temperature-dependent perfomance: when chips become too hot, they slow down.PCs are usually air-cooled, relying on simple fans to prevent the electronics from overheating, but for larger systems such as servers, server farms and data centres, forced air-cooling is sometimes not sufficient.Air-cooling methods,which use fans to blow air across the chips, are not ideal for supercomputers or large server banks.Servers and data centres consume enormous amounts of power simply to run the electronics and keep them from overheating.Thus there is a need to develop extreme-temperature electronic (ETE) components for high-temperature applications.
Reducing the heat generated by CPUs of computers is an important research area now, and all the major chip makers are actively developing chips that consume less power and thus generate less heat.Designed to continuously operate for at least five years at 225 degree celecius,the standard electronic products family is targeted at sensor signal conditioning, data acquisition and control applications in hostile environments, and offers significant reliability and perfomance advantages over traditional silicon integrated circuits when the operating temperatures are greater than 150 degree celcius.
Although the present market for extreme-temperature electronics is small, it could develop tremendously if the automotive market opens up.The benefits of deploying extreme-temperature electronics, to say the least, include elimination of auxiliary cooling with massive heat-sink or heat-pipe design, lighter weight and smaller size, and integration of sensors and other transducers directly at the crucial location of interest.
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