Why Electronics Need Cooling - transistor heat sink
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Date: 2023-11-17
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Comments and reviews: 19
TheJackal033
This is actually pretty misleading. Yes, all electronic components have resistance, and yes, passing current through resistance creates heat, but that is NOT the reason why modern electronics needs cooling, since the heat produced by the resistance of most low current electronic components in quite miniscule. The real reason why modern digital devices heat up so much that they require cooling is the way they do computation. It would be way too hard to explain in a single comment. To understand it, you need to understand the Maxwell's demon problem and especially the Charles Bennett's solution to it.
Let me quote wikipedia: In 1982, Charles Bennett showed that, however well prepared, eventually the demon (or the logic circuit) will run out of information storage space and must begin to erase the information it has previously gathered. Erasing information is a thermodynamically irreversible process that increases the entropy of a system. Although Bennett had reached the same conclusion as Szilard's 1929 paper, that a Maxwellian demon could not violate the second law because entropy would be created, he had reached it for different reasons. Regarding Landauer's principle, the minimum energy dissipated by deleting information was experimentally measured by Eric Lutz et al. in 2012. Furthermore, Lutz et al. confirmed that in order to approach the Landauer's limit, the system must asymptotically approach zero processing speed.
It's important to note that pretty much all existing logical circuits will dissipate heat, because even the individual logic gates erase information every cycle (if you have two inputs and only one output, then entropy is increaed because you can't recreate the input states from the output state.
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This is actually pretty misleading. Yes, all electronic components have resistance, and yes, passing current through resistance creates heat, but that is NOT the reason why modern electronics needs cooling, since the heat produced by the resistance of most low current electronic components in quite miniscule. The real reason why modern digital devices heat up so much that they require cooling is the way they do computation. It would be way too hard to explain in a single comment. To understand it, you need to understand the Maxwell's demon problem and especially the Charles Bennett's solution to it.
Let me quote wikipedia: In 1982, Charles Bennett showed that, however well prepared, eventually the demon (or the logic circuit) will run out of information storage space and must begin to erase the information it has previously gathered. Erasing information is a thermodynamically irreversible process that increases the entropy of a system. Although Bennett had reached the same conclusion as Szilard's 1929 paper, that a Maxwellian demon could not violate the second law because entropy would be created, he had reached it for different reasons. Regarding Landauer's principle, the minimum energy dissipated by deleting information was experimentally measured by Eric Lutz et al. in 2012. Furthermore, Lutz et al. confirmed that in order to approach the Landauer's limit, the system must asymptotically approach zero processing speed.
It's important to note that pretty much all existing logical circuits will dissipate heat, because even the individual logic gates erase information every cycle (if you have two inputs and only one output, then entropy is increaed because you can't recreate the input states from the output state.
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Malek
Hi The Engineering Mindset i am a viewer from Algeria and i have so many questions to ask you about electrical installations.
the two most urgent are related to solar installation and grounding
1. i have a distribution board with two sources of electricity, city electric and solar (2400W inverter)
the thing is the two electric circuit are never in contact with each other but i have to properly ground all the electric sockets for safety.
the question is do i make sepret grouding bar for the diffrent sockets or it doesn't matter or there is other solutions.
2. for my solar installation i have a pure sine wave inverter from EPEVER 2400 watt and the problem is that it is properly grounded but when i mesur from the neutral or live wire to the ground i have half of the potential (115 volt).
ps: i have 230 volt between neutral and live
i heard about neutral bonding and floating neutral but it is high level for me.
i hope you can help and thank you in advance.
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Hi The Engineering Mindset i am a viewer from Algeria and i have so many questions to ask you about electrical installations.
the two most urgent are related to solar installation and grounding
1. i have a distribution board with two sources of electricity, city electric and solar (2400W inverter)
the thing is the two electric circuit are never in contact with each other but i have to properly ground all the electric sockets for safety.
the question is do i make sepret grouding bar for the diffrent sockets or it doesn't matter or there is other solutions.
2. for my solar installation i have a pure sine wave inverter from EPEVER 2400 watt and the problem is that it is properly grounded but when i mesur from the neutral or live wire to the ground i have half of the potential (115 volt).
ps: i have 230 volt between neutral and live
i heard about neutral bonding and floating neutral but it is high level for me.
i hope you can help and thank you in advance.
reply
ggzh
You did not even mention the reason digital semiconductors produce heat: Gate capacity. Every time a transistor switches the gate capacity has to be charged or discharged. This is why the power usage increases linear with frequency at the same voltage.
The capacity of a single MOSFET is very small but because of the high frequency and huge amount of transistors it will generate the most heat in modern CPUs.
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You did not even mention the reason digital semiconductors produce heat: Gate capacity. Every time a transistor switches the gate capacity has to be charged or discharged. This is why the power usage increases linear with frequency at the same voltage.
The capacity of a single MOSFET is very small but because of the high frequency and huge amount of transistors it will generate the most heat in modern CPUs.
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Richard
When current passes through a transistor, they generate heat. When transistors get hot, they pass more current. Current passing through a transistor generates heat. Heat allows more current to pass through. More current passing through generates more heat. Uh oh, fire.
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When current passes through a transistor, they generate heat. When transistors get hot, they pass more current. Current passing through a transistor generates heat. Heat allows more current to pass through. More current passing through generates more heat. Uh oh, fire.
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nottingtohide
Wonder if Peltier plates would be any good at taking away excess heat from heatsinks, but I think there would be a condensation issues, then there's the 70 watts needed to power it. Have yet to see a Peltier used in such circuits to cool them down.
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Wonder if Peltier plates would be any good at taking away excess heat from heatsinks, but I think there would be a condensation issues, then there's the 70 watts needed to power it. Have yet to see a Peltier used in such circuits to cool them down.
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dracula
we have a thin layer of thermal paste and we try to keep it as thin as possible, because as much as thermal paste is a good conductor of heat, Cu or Al are much better, we just use thermal paste to fill in the imperfections on the surface of the metal.
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we have a thin layer of thermal paste and we try to keep it as thin as possible, because as much as thermal paste is a good conductor of heat, Cu or Al are much better, we just use thermal paste to fill in the imperfections on the surface of the metal.
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Silvio
Very informative video about heat removal. I have one question please. Which type of insulator between a power transistor and a heatsink transfers heat best? Mica, silicone or a ceramic insulator provided that all have thermal paste on both sides?
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Very informative video about heat removal. I have one question please. Which type of insulator between a power transistor and a heatsink transfers heat best? Mica, silicone or a ceramic insulator provided that all have thermal paste on both sides?
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Nick
This was more about how cooling works, but never explained WHY components get hot. What is the reason? You have to conclude from watching this yourself that its due to how much current flows through a device versus its physical size.
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This was more about how cooling works, but never explained WHY components get hot. What is the reason? You have to conclude from watching this yourself that its due to how much current flows through a device versus its physical size.
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Lihao
0: 52 Why use a 9V battery when you know it will burn out0 the LED though? You opt to use a 9V battery, only to add a resistor to reduce the voltage, wasting energy and releasing heat in the process. Isn't that redundant?
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0: 52 Why use a 9V battery when you know it will burn out0 the LED though? You opt to use a 9V battery, only to add a resistor to reduce the voltage, wasting energy and releasing heat in the process. Isn't that redundant?
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MrFlame
So wait, resistors don't reduce the amount of energy being used by the power supply, so if a 9 volt battery powered an led with a resistor, it'd last equally as long as if it was powering something without a resistor?
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So wait, resistors don't reduce the amount of energy being used by the power supply, so if a 9 volt battery powered an led with a resistor, it'd last equally as long as if it was powering something without a resistor?
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William
The Engineering Mindset Videos are perhaps the best videos on YT, and this video is particularly good. I have sent you money, I hope others do too. Best, Will, UK England
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The Engineering Mindset Videos are perhaps the best videos on YT, and this video is particularly good. I have sent you money, I hope others do too. Best, Will, UK England
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Rune
How come the temperature on all four IGBT is the same? The water should heat up on its way through this cooler, so I would expect the last one to be hotter than the first.
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How come the temperature on all four IGBT is the same? The water should heat up on its way through this cooler, so I would expect the last one to be hotter than the first.
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Filip
6: 29
Some guy: Hey, what if we didn't do that.
Apple: He might be onto something.
Apple a bit later: Launches Macbook air 2019 with a disconnected fan
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6: 29
Some guy: Hey, what if we didn't do that.
Apple: He might be onto something.
Apple a bit later: Launches Macbook air 2019 with a disconnected fan
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Nick
thermo-dynamics is such a cool science, for my fellow gamers out their who want to further understand easily, take a look at the game oxygen not included!
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thermo-dynamics is such a cool science, for my fellow gamers out their who want to further understand easily, take a look at the game oxygen not included!
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Cascadian
Im really curious about heat sink applications on firearms, specifically for cooling down barrel and outside of chamber and also for grip panels
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Im really curious about heat sink applications on firearms, specifically for cooling down barrel and outside of chamber and also for grip panels
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Ferroequinologist
Actually with the liquid cooling system on high end gaming PCs they use mineral oil not water in the cooling system
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Actually with the liquid cooling system on high end gaming PCs they use mineral oil not water in the cooling system
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Ritesh
thanks to you bro, today finally i learned what is voltage drop and how its happing in my whole life. A Big Thank you
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thanks to you bro, today finally i learned what is voltage drop and how its happing in my whole life. A Big Thank you
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William
my argument is that resistor technology is LAZY and inefficient. the diode could probably operate on current.
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my argument is that resistor technology is LAZY and inefficient. the diode could probably operate on current.
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Thrillium
A very nice video, you explain things in a simple way that makes them easy to understand. Keep it up!
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A very nice video, you explain things in a simple way that makes them easy to understand. Keep it up!
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