Did you miss us? For those of you that are faithful readers of ElectronicsCooling, I am pleased to inform you that after a short interval of restructuring, we have resumed publication. Given the recent downturn in the economy as a whole, and specifically within the electronics thermal management community, we can hope that this is a sign of improvement and recovery. We will have four hard-copy print issues per year, similar to what our readers have come to expect. Additionally, our re-designed website at electronics-cooling.com contains both archives of previous issues and other relevant electronics cooling material. The print issue will be released first, and then after a short period, will be archived on the website.
ElectronicsCooling magazine began in 1995 with a mission of providing current and practical thermal management information with archival value. Our current mission remains the same and we will continue with independent technical editors solely responsible for technical content.
I hear frequent compliments on the content of this magazine. I trust that you find the information provided within these pages has value. One new addition for this issue is a “Thermal Facts and Fairytales” column. This column aims to educate our readers about thermal management and assist them in interpreting information found in electronics cooling literature.
We live in a world with excessive data and sometimes excessive information. Data is really only useful once made into information. Generating large amounts of data with today’s technology can be relatively easy, but turning it into useful information can be challenging. For example, Europe’s particle physics laboratory, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, can generate 40 terabytes of data per second during an experiment. Fortunately, perhaps, this is more data than can be stored, so the scientists pick and choose, which is useful for information purposes.
Closer to the electronics cooling community, large data server complexes are constructed in part because the product of search engines on the Internet is information, or in some instances, just data. While we see a push for energy efficiency, there is very little effort made in reducing the amount of data. It should have been obvious to any thermal engineer that electricity costs for powering the electronics and providing cooling would become a focus as the scale increased. It also seems to be unquestionable that all of this data, or information, needs to be stored in a readily accessible fashion. The need becomes adding rapidly larger storage capacity rather than going through the difficult decision of eliminating some of the information. The phrase about one man’s junk being another man’s treasure probably applies.
Just as data is only useful once formed into information, information is only useful insofar as how it impacts the service or design it supports. Relevant information sharing is the aim of ElectronicsCooling magazine and website. One of the services we provide our readers is a focal point for valuable information on managing the temperature of electronics. We strive to provide timely and practical material to assist you in performing a job well done. Feel free to contact us with any hot ideas on this topic.
