Compressed air cooling

#The performance of electronic components such as computer chips is affected by its operating temperature. If components are not being cooled sufficiently, they do not perform as well. As electronic components become more powerful, they also tend to generate more heat. Data centers include server racks that each contain electronic components that generate heat. The heat can significantly degrade the performance of the data center, e.g., causing request handling to be slow, consuming large amounts of energy, and causing components to malfunction prematurely. Existing cooling methods are becoming inadequate for maintaining an optimal temperature environment for electronic components or are impractical to use for cooling electronics. For example, liquid cooling, which is used in automotive settings can achieve a desired temperature. However, liquid cooling is not ideal for settings such as data centers because of the tendency of liquid cooling systems to leak.

#Various embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings.

#FIG. 1 shows an example of a data center in which the compressed air cooling techniques described here can be applied.

#FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a tray in a server rack.

#The invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process; an apparatus; a system; a composition of matter; a computer program product embodied on a computer readable storage medium; and/or a processor, such as a processor configured to execute instructions stored on and/or provided by a memory coupled to the processor. In this specification, these implementations, or any other form that the invention may take, may be referred to as techniques. In general, the order of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within the scope of the invention. Unless stated otherwise, a component such as a processor or a memory described as being configured to perform a task may be implemented as a general component that is temporarily configured to perform the task at a given time or a specific component that is manufactured to perform the task. As used herein, the term ‘processor’ refers to one or more devices, circuits, and/or processing cores configured to process data, such as computer program instructions.

#A detailed description of one or more embodiments of the invention is provided below along with accompanying figures that illustrate the principles of the invention. The invention is described in connection with such embodiments, but the invention is not limited to any embodiment. The scope of the invention is limited only by the claims and the invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications and equivalents. Numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. These details are provided for the purpose of example and the invention may be practiced according to the claims without some or all of these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technical material that is known in the technical fields related to the invention has not been described in detail so that the invention is not unnecessarily obscured.

#FIG. 1 shows an example of a data center in which the compressed air cooling techniques described here can be applied. A data center houses network infrastructure devices such as server racks. A server rack is made up of a stack of network racks (also called trays), which are further described in FIG. 2. When a user visits a Web page, uses an application, or otherwise interacts with an Internet-based service, the user's requests are handled by data centers. There have been efforts to standardize server racks. For example, the Open Compute Project's Open Rack V2 sets specifications and design guidelines for rack dimensions, rack-mounted components, and the like. The compressed air cooling techniques described below can be applied to cool a variety of electronic components (such as integrated circuit chips) including those in server racks complying with the Open Rack V2 specification.