Mary-Louise Hoffman
Lockheed Martin has developed technology for the thermal management of high-powered microchips as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency‘s Inter/Intra Chip Enhanced Cooling Applications initiative.
The company said Tuesday its microfluidic cooling system aims to increase the performance of monolithic microwave integrated circuit-based power amplifiers and embedded systems.
A team of DARPA and Lockheed researchers found during a study that the technology increased an amplifier’s radio-frequency output power by more than six times compared with a conventional microchip cooling technique.
“If you can manage the heat, you can use fewer chips and that means using less material, which results in cost savings as well as reduced system size and weight,” noted John Ditri, principal investigator for Lockheed’s ICECool research effort.
According to the company, the embedded thermal management approach could have potential applications in high-performance computers, data servers, radars and electronic warfare platforms.
Lockheed also looks to integrate the system with a gallium nitride technology developed by semiconductor company Qorvo.
