I-Corps: Translation Potential of Micromachined Electrostatic Cooling Fans

This I-Corps project focuses on the development of a new class of chip-scale cooling micro-fans. Effective heat removal (cooling) continues to be a major bottleneck for achieving higher processing power in large scale integrated digital electronics. As electronics like smartphones, laptops, and medical devices get smaller and more powerful, they generate more heat in tighter spaces.

This new technology provides powerful, silent, and compact cooling systems, helping devices run better and last longer without overheating. With the growing demand for artificial intelligence and consequently the need for ever-increasing higher processing powers and massive data centers, electronic cooling is also a growing challenge. This solution offers a chip-scale micro-fan that can be mounted directly on high performing electronic components, blowing a high velocity air stream onto the hot surface to provide a more efficient, effective, and compact solution.

Successful commercialization of this technology may contribute to the growth of advanced chip manufacturing and data center capacity in the United States.

This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of the technology. This solution is based on the development of a tiny device, a chip-scale actuator, capable of producing up to ten-times more mechanical energy in the same amount of space compared to existing lead-based devices known as piezoelectric transducers.

The technology works by using advanced three-dimensional silicon micro-manufacturing techniques to increase the surface area inside the silicon chip, which helps it create more energy. These devices can make tiny parts vibrate very fast: microscale cantilevers that vibrate at ultrasonic frequencies that humans can't hear, to power small air-blowers to become cooling micro-fans.

This technology is important because it can cool small electronic devices more efficiently and in a much smaller space than current technology allows.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.