Sparkle: Diamond-like Carbon to increase cooling performance

The physical characteristics of diamond-like carbon are said to utilizable for increasing the performance of graphics card coolers. Sparkle announced that the company will probably use DLC coating to improve the cooling solutions of their graphics cards.

Sparkle Press Release:

SPARKLE Proudly Announced Diamonds Sputtering Technology For Video Cards
Taipei, Taiwan - February 16, 2009 - SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today proudly announced Diamonds Sputtering technology for video cards, which raise the bar for video card cooling technology.

Now with more and more advanced relative technologies, the performance of video cards is getting stronger and stronger, there will be more heat generated by video cards, which significantly impairs the life expectancy of GPU and video memory chips on video cards. Video card companies have a lot of programs come and go to solve the problem of heat dissipation. The most commonly seen in general is the use of fans with cooling fins to do additional cooling. in the early days, the cooling job can be done simply with a fan or cooling fins, but in today's graphics cards with more intense heat than before, the cooling job must be done on the technologies not the same as before, not just rely on the fan and cooling fins. Video card companies must go to find some relatively new method to solve the problem of heat dissipation.

With a strong R&D team, SPARKLE introduced Diamonds Sputtering technology, which plate a Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) membrane on the surface of video cards cooling fins to realize the cooling effects of DLC. Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) membrane can help to quickly transfer the heat from GPU and video memory chips to the cooling fins. SPARKLE R&D team found in the study that Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) which gradually been found in the past few years has many high-natures, such as high optical penetrating, high-chemical corrosion-resistant, excellent friction properties and good compatibility. In addition, Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) also has a high heat conduction. General heatsink is relies on the electronics movement within the metal (such as copper) to do heat conduction. The diamonds do heat dissipation four times faster than copper, it relies on the phonons which is produced by the crystal lattice vibration, to bring heat to lower temperature places. Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) can achieve both functions at the same time, that is, transferring heat to lower temperature places with both graphite metal bond and diamond insulation bond (the covalent bond) . Apart from this, Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) can transfer carbon surface heat (atomic vibrations) into the infrared radiation of electromagnetic waves in bold (Black Body Radiation) , directly to the air molecules.

SPARKLE R&D team is now using the leading technology of Plasma Enhanced CVD, (PECVD) for SPARKLE graphics cards, to plate Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) membrane on the surface of video cards cooling radiator, providing unbeatable cooling effect, significantly raising the heat transfer speed from the GPU and video memory chips to the cooling radiator. With tests, SPARKLE R&D team found that compared with no Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) membrane, Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) membrane can reduce the value of thermal resistance of the radiator about 0.05, the radiator temperature can be reduced by 5 degrees Celsius, greatly accelerate the heat conduction from GPU and video memory chips.

In addition, SPARKLE R&D team also found that, in addition to outstanding cooling effect, the Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) membrane is a super-hard carbon coating, it can protect the radiator metal from scratching. Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) membrane can isolated the air to avoid the thermal conductance reduction of radiator due to oxidation (such as the formation of Cu2O or Al2O3). Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) membrane can also protect heat sinks from water vapor or acid-base erosion. Therefore, Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) membrane is the best option for extending the service life of SPARKLE graphics cards.
Because the current cost of this technology is still high, SPARKLE will consider the appropriate application step by step according to the real situations of the new products.