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Thermal management: a hot topic
Components vendors are always trying to shrink the size of optical modules, this week’s announcement of the tunable XFP being a good example of this trend. In doing so, the thermal management presents just as much of a challenge as the optics. In fact, the required power dissipation often determines the size of a module.
So I was very interested to meet with Nextreme, a company that’s got an extremely efficient method of cooling optical chips. The material that it has developed can pump 10 to 20 times more heat than conventional thermoelectric coolers (TECs), and comes in a much smaller package. “In telecoms most of the money is in the packaging, and the way to get that out is to shrink the packaging. Our focus is to help people do that,” said Paul Magill, the VP of marketing and business development for Nextreme.
Nextreme claims that its cooler is the only one that can fit inside a TO-56 can. A TO-56 can is 5.6mm wide, and represents the next step in shrinking optical transmitters; it’s a lot smaller than the TOSA package that vendors normally use. Nextreme has also integrated its material into flip-chip solder bumps, and imagines that one day the material might become part of the packaging rather than an additional device that must be bought.
On one level, Nextreme’s technology doesn’t sound all that new. It’s based on thin films of bismuth telluride, a material that’s been used for years to make Peltier coolers. On the other hand, the capabilities of this material sound like are a significant enhancement on what was available before, which could make a difference to optics vendors.
Here’s a video that Nextreme showed me:
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