E6 unveils copper-diamond composite for next-gen thermal management
The big picture: Element Six has introduced a copper-plated diamond composite material designed to address increasing thermal management challenges in advanced semiconductor devices. By lowering temperatures, some chips could be fed more voltage and be pushed to run even faster.
Synthetic diamond specialist Element Six, part of the De Beers Group (think diamond jewelry), said more than half of all electronic device failures today are heat-related. And considering that data centers are expected to account for 10 percent of the total US power demand by 2029, thermal management is becoming an ever-pressing matter.
This is where E6’s Cu-diamond composite comes into play. According to the company, its thermal conductivity is in the 800 W/mk range – about twice as high as copper, but not quite as high as diamond on its own. Diamond, as you may know, is the leading thermally conductive material with conductivity values that are about five times that of copper.
The Cu-diamond material can be manufactured into complex shapes with specific features, like holes or curves, to fit a variety of applications (think heatspreaders and other inserts designed to fit between a chip and its cooling solution). E6 noted that thermal conductivity and coefficient of thermal expansion can be fine-tuned by varying the copper-diamond composition to meet a client’s specific needs.
According to the company, it’s also cost effective. It’s hard to imagine anything with diamonds in it – synthetic or natural – being affordable, but we’ll reserve judgement until pricing is revealed.
Also read: CPU makers are experimenting with alternative substrates to double clock speeds
Don’t expect to see this tech show up in consumer-grade hardware, at least not anytime soon. E6 expects the first applications to utilize the material to include high-end chips for AI processing, RF power amplifiers for wireless and defense communications, and powerful semiconductor lasers.
Element Six will showcase its new material at the SPIE Photonics West conference for optics and photonics. The show starts on January 28 and runs through the 30th in San Francisco.
