Diamond Thermal Conductivity: A New Era in Chip Cooling
23 comments
·October 20, 20250cf8612b2e1e
Have diamonds found their way into other industrial cooling solutions? With the research into gem grade diamonds, I have been expecting cheap ugly synthetic diamonds to be used in more products. I have long joked that I want a diamond frying pan.
gpm
3D printer nozzles, which is sort of the opposite (industrial heating products).
Part of the argument is that better heat conduction means that you can run the nozzle cooler resulting in less heat conduction to the cold side (above where you want the filament to melt) so I guess its "cooling" in a sense too.
Yossarrian22
I’m surprised nobody has done a phone screen yet
Tuna-Fish
Large single crystal diamond, what is required for a nice transparent screen, is still quite expensive. This article is about polycrystalline diamond, which is not really that transparent, but is nearly as good at thermal conduction as monocrystalline diamond.
Atomic_Torrfisk
> ugly synthetic diamonds
Not any more, their quality has increased recently. Not that I care, wife and I did without them during our engagement.
jrk
I think the point was not that gem-grade synthetic diamonds are ugly, but that, as industry masters gem-grade production, presumably below-gem-grade production (“ugly synthetic diamonds”) would become cheap enough to deploy in more engineering settings where diamond’s other unique properties were the key concern.
rbanffy
> I have long joked that I want a diamond frying pan
As long as you don’t use it on a gas stove, you should be fine.
kees99
Why? Diamond has very low thermal expansion, so no risk of stress/embrittlement/cracks from uneven heating.
Or you mean it'll catch fire? Also not a concern. That is supposed to happen at a temperature well above anything useful for cooking.
rbanffy
The temperature of the blue flame on a stove should be above 1000 Celsius, well above what’s required to oxidise diamonds. They won’t catch fire, but your diamond pan will erode. Once you remove it from the flame, it won’t continue “burning”.
Should be safe on electrical stoves though.
LtdJorge
I think because it will burn your hand?
PunchyHamster
Just put them on inside only
Klaster_1
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45654512
snalty
This reminded me of this: https://www.innovationcooling.com/products/ic-diamond/?srslt... which seemed to be all the rage in PC building 10 years ago
lightedman
Nothing new, Applied Diamond has made this stuff for several years and it is incredible. Imagine putting a 15w LED on a typical 20mm star board made of diamond - you do not need a heat sink. Just minor air flow over the package is enough.
A little unlike IEEE to be nearly half a decade out of the loop.
Tuna-Fish
The invention is a fast, low-temperature deposition process, which can then be used directly on a semiconductor device.
lateforwork
Diamond Foundry achieves the same end goal even if the deposition methods and technical processes may differ: https://df.com
yorwba
The new thing here is growing a thin layer of diamond directly on top of a chip.
NedF
[dead]
> But my research group at Stanford University has managed what seemed impossible.
Wait a minute, others have been doing this already: https://www.df.com/
How is this different?
See also: https://youtu.be/ggQKZDZsDec