New generation of embedded computing thermal management in development at GE

Posted by John Keller

THE MIL & AERO BLOG, 3 Sept. 2013. High-performance embedded computing (HPEC) designers may get a new tool over the next couple of years to in their quest to control the internal temperatures of increasingly sophisticated embedded computing systems.

Thermal management experts at the General Electric (GE) Global Research Center in Schenectady, N.Y., are working on a convection-cooling approach that reduces the size of traditional fans while improving cooling capability.

Designed originally with high-performance laptop computers in mind, the GE Dual Piezoelectric Cooling Jets (DCJ) technology may offer embedded computing designers not only advanced convection cooling, but also lower power consumption and higher reliability than traditional cooling fans.

The DCJ technology can be packaged into a cooling fan that measures 1.5 by 3 inches, and half an inch thick, while consuming 350 to 400 milliwatts, says senior GE researcher William Gerstler.

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The advanced electronics thermal cooler moves one cubic foot of air per minute in a laminar flow. "It has a multiplier effect on the air it moves," explained Gerstler at last month's Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) conference and trade show in Washington.

The DCJ technology, which has been likened to the expansion-and-contraction action of the human lung, "creates a low-pressure area that entrains the air," Gerstler says.

The technology works with two piezo-electric elements, and so should last longer and be less susceptible to shock and vibration in deployed embedded computing systems than traditional fans.

This technology also could enable designers of rugged embedded systems to blend convection and conduction cooling in the same chassis to improve the performance of sophisticated digital signal processing without resorting to exotic thermal-management approaches like liquid cooling.

Companies interested in this technology may not have long to wait. Gerstler says GE officials are looking at product introductions that involve DCJ technology as early as 2015.