Introduction Microprocessor and system thermal management are linked to facility cooling: power dissipation and cooling techniques employed at one end of the size scale have cascading impacts at the other extreme (Figure 1). For example, ineffective airflow distribution or insufficient underfloor static pressure in a data center can reduce the supply airflow rate from … [Read more...]
Communication Network Power Efficiency Assessment, Limitations and Directions
Introduction Despite the slowdown in the communication industry, Internet traffic continues to grow rapidly, fueled by the explosion in data communications, mobile Internet, e-commerce, content rich applications, and multi-media services. Internet traffic has increased by approximately 80% yearly in each of the last three years, and will continue to grow at 60 - 80% annually … [Read more...]
Hot Spots in Data Centers
Heat loads of data processing equipment continue to increase at a rapid rate. This increasing heat load has been documented by a Thermal Management Consortium of 17 companies [1] as shown in Figure 1. Also shown in this figure are measured heat fluxes (based on product footprint) of some recent product announcements. The most recent shows a rack dissipating 28,500 watts, … [Read more...]
Power Density Challenges Of Next Generation Telecommunication Networks
Despite the current downturn in the telecommunications industry, data transfer (i.e. network traffic) is continuing to grow at a 100% rate [1]. It is already projected that network traffic demand will reach tens of Tb/s in a couple of years from now (see predicted traffic demands from telecommunications analysts Ryan, Hankin & Kent, Figure 1). At the same time, network … [Read more...]
Thermal challenges in the telecom and networks industry
Figure 1: Telecom Equipment Operating EnvironmentsThere are two main reasons for doing thermal design in the telecommunication industry. The first is to ensure functionality of the equipment and system when subjected to extreme environments. The second is to ensure high dependability of the network. While doing thermal design, many challenges must be kept in mind: the … [Read more...]