---
title: "EDN: ICs could run on heat waste"
description: "Joseph Heremans and Roberto Meyrs at the (http://www.osu.edu) have been studying materials that could be used to turn heat from ICs into electricity. The research is focused on…"
canonical: "https://www.baldengineer.com/edn-ics-could-run-on-heat-waste.html"
author: "James Lewis"
date: "2010-09-30T20:05:39Z"
lastmod: "2015-03-24T16:30:20Z"
image: "https://www.baldengineer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/220px-Peltierelement_16x1-thumb1.jpg"
categories: ["around-the-web"]
tags: ["electronics","research","science","semiconductors","spintronics","thermal"]
---

# EDN: ICs could run on heat waste


Joseph Heremans and Roberto Meyrs at the [Ohio State University](http://www.osu.edu) have been studying materials that could be used to turn heat from ICs into electricity. The research is focused on [thermo-electricity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect) and [spintronics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spintronics). In theory, this could mean mutual benefits to heavy processing: more effective heat removal from processors while generating the electricity they need to operate.

> "All of the computers we have now could actually run much faster than they do, but they're not allowed to - because if they did, they would fail after a short time," Myers said in the statement. "So a huge amount of money in the semiconductor industry is put toward thermal management."

Full details are available from an article in [Nature Materials](http://www.nature.com/nmat/index.html). Suzanne Deffree at EDN has provided an excellent (and more detailed) write-up titled: "[ICs could run on heat waste, rather than electricity, researchers believe](http://www.edn.com/electronics-news/4363698/ICs-could-run-on-heat-waste-rather-than-electricity-researchers-believe "Could electronics run on wasted heat?")."