Thermoelectric cooling apparatus

Abstract

A thermoelectric cooling apparatus is described. The thermoelectric cooling apparatus includes a heat-dissipating barrel, a wind guide, cooling fins, and a guiding fan. The heat-dissipating barrel further includes a thermoelectric chip cooling module and heat-dissipating fins disposed therein to remove the heat exchanged by the thermoelectric chip cooling module. One end of the wind guide is coupled to a heat source of an electronic device, for example, a CPU or a graphic chip of a computer. Another end of the wind guide is coupled to the cooling fins coupled to the thermoelectric chip cooling module. The guiding fan drives air passing through the cooling fins to reduce a temperature thereof and blowing to the heat source to reduce the operating temperature thereof.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present application is based on, and claims priority from, Taiwan Application Serial Number 95203659, filed Mar. 6, 2006, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention generally relates to a thermoelectric cooling apparatus. More particularly, this invention relates to a thermoelectric cooling apparatus for a computer system.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]The information technology and the computer industry are technologically highly developed and the semiconductor manufacturing processes have very advanced requirements. Therefore, the electric circuit layouts of semiconductors have become more complicated and more sophisticated. Complicated and sophisticated semiconductors have higher power consumption, which results in an increase in the operating temperature thereof.[0004]However, semiconductor electronic components are used extensively in computer products, comm...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009]Another object of the present invention is to provide a thermoelectric cooling apparatus with a thermoelectric chip and a wind guide in conjunction with a power supply and a heat-dissipating module of a CPU so that the thermoelectric cooling apparatus can reduce both the temperature of the CPU and the internal temperature of the computer.

[0011]The heat-dissipating barrel further includes a thermoelectric chip cooling module and heat-dissipating fins disposed therein to remove heat exchanged by the thermoelectric chip cooling module. One end of the wind guide is coupled to the heat source of the electronic device and another end of the wind guide is coupled to the cooling fins. The guiding fan is installed on the wind guide to drive the airflow through the cooling fins so as to reduce the temperature of the airflow and the airflow is blown to the heat source of the electronic device to reduce the operating temperature of the heat source.

[0014]The thermoelectric cooling apparatus according to the present invention can suck the air outside the electronic device and cool the air with the thermoelectric chip cooling module. In addition, using the wind guide conducts the air to directly reduce the operating temperature of the high power integrated circuits, for example, a CPU or a graphic chip. Therefore, the operating temperature of the integrated circuits can be effectively reduced. Furthermore, because the air is cooled by the thermoelectric chip cooling module, the temperature of the air is lower than the environmental temperature and the internal temperature of the electronic device can be further reduced.

Problems solved by technology

Therefore, the electric circuit layouts of semiconductors have become more complicated and more sophisticated.

Complicated and sophisticated semiconductors have higher power consumption, which results in an increase in the operating temperature thereof.

The high operating temperature can cause instabilities in a working system.

Furthermore, if the operating temperature is too high, the performance and stability decrease and the operating system may even crash, in extreme situations.

However, when the heat generated by the CPU is removed from the CPU, the heat still resides in the computer.

The larger heat-dissipating device has to occupy more space inside the computer otherwise the stability of the computer system may be reduced because there is too much heat inside the computer.

Images