The center of a fuel rod in a PWR reaches more than 1000 C.
Perhaps Wilson was talking about the thermal power/area of chips vs. the surface of fuel rods. I believe the former can exceed the latter.
The center of a fuel rod in a PWR reaches more than 1000 C.
Perhaps Wilson was talking about the thermal power/area of chips vs. the surface of fuel rods. I believe the former can exceed the latter.
That's why chip thermals is its own whole subfield of physical design.
Chips have the advantage that the workings are right at the surface, mere microns from it. So the heat can easily get out. The power density in that thin surface layer can be very high. Perhaps similarly, the power density of a PV cell can be very high, if one just looks at the active layer where light is being absorbed. In CdTe this layer is < 1 micron thick. The energy delivered over the life of the cell per atom in this layer can approach that of nuclear reactions.
Anyway, it's a promising comparison, since the core of a PWR can reach volumetric power density of ~100 MW/m^3 (and probably higher in naval reactors). Servers can potentially be made very compact.
Which comes out to be about 831kW per square meter and the cooling solution keeps it at 60-63C even under that load (while noticeably warming my office since it's effectively dumping the same as one bar on a two bar electric heater).
As a species, we got really good at engineering.
This is not necessarily a functioning chip.