Carbon fiber heatspreaders?

[MisterChief]

Take a look at the memory pictured below the article (it's an interesting article on Computex and memory, feel free to read it): http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=2443&p=4

What do ya think of that? Carbon fiber replacing aluminum and copper heatsinks? Could be an interesting way to cool other components.

[Frakk]

i was thinking the same. it definetly looks good and they claim it works better than aluminium too. however, carbon is notorious of its great conductivity and it can cause problems. i think they are coating them with something electricaly non-conductive but it can still get damaged or melted. anyhow, i'd like to see this develope in the future

[MisterChief]

Yeah, I was thinking that the carbon fiber has to be coated or laced with something. I'm still amazed that CF has better cooling properties than typical metal heatsinks. What type of paste do you suppose might be "useable" with carbon fiber?

[Frakk]

i think regular as5 or ceramique will work just fine. now the other thing i wonder about is the coating they will spray on it. it should be just as heat conductive as the carbon fiber or it will be a huge bottleneck.

[MisterChief]

I wonder what else could be used to cool computers... hmm, I have a strong felling potaos will be involved...

[Zeus]

and if the idea fails, at least you could have a nice baked potato

[Malatory]

There are some epoxies that you can get for Carbon fiber that can handle the High Temps, and that would really be what they need.
Look at the last one 700 Degree F.
http://cotronics.com/vo/cotr/ea_ultratemp.htm

Duralco™ 4703 is Cotronics' high temp. resins reinforced with ceramic and metallic fibers and particles, resulting in the ultimate stability in high temp. environments.

That with carbon Fiber or FiberGlass and you have a heat spreader.

[Frakk]

now the other question is how good they conduct heat. if they are poor conductors and cant give off the heat to the carbon itself, it wont work.

[Malatory]

I have not really seen a plus or Minus on using heat spreaders on ram (Or good documention on it I should say). in some mobo's I see them making the air flow more restrictive.

But Gel is using the single sided chips so that is a plus for the heat as it is.

[Cwrench]

I once read some where about the conducitve properties of carbon and other materials and it was something like 10 times better than siver if the fibers where running in parallel to the heat source. But if the fibers were going the opposite way it becomes one of the worst conductors of heat.
To eliminate the bottleneck between the heat source and the fiber you would have to use some sort of dimond powder; becouse dimond IS the best conductor there is. (before the superconductors) Very good idea to us for a water cooled system which I have been meening to make. I was wating for some company to catch on to the consept. It took some time this might be the start of a prossesor revolution. cool stuff huh