Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM 

Monday, September 21, 1998 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium 

Paul J. Boudreaux

ABSTRACT -- Since the advent of VLSI microelectronics, there has been a steady demand for higher and higher performance (processing speed) in high end computing systems. This has placed an ever increasing load on the thermal capabilities of systems. Two new technological breakthroughs have greatly alleviated this thermal bottleneck: synthetic polycrystalline diamond and aerosol spray cooling. Each has unique characteristics to add to the thermal design and control of microelectronics, but when used together a new paradigm is possible for thermal management. Each technology will be described along with some example applications to illustrate the remarkable characteristics of these technologies: A Cray Research J90 supercomputer in a "shoe box", VME standard chassis designs, embedded power supplies, etc.  

SPEAKER: Paul J. Boudreaux is currently the Technical Director of the Laboratory for Physical Sciences, a physics research laboratory in the Research and SIGINT Technology Office, at the National Security Agency. He formerly served as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of NSA for forming the Special Processing Laboratory, which produces integrated circuits for the Intelligence Community. His current interest as a reliability physicist is on the development of new technological solutions for thermal management in very high performance electronic systems. He received a BS with Honors in physics from Loyola University of the South in 1963. He has been with the National Security Agency since leaving Louisiana State University in 1965 with a Masters Degree in physics and mathematics and had completed the academic coursework requirements for a Ph.D. in physics in 1970. Paul has received international recognition through his services as General Conference Chair of the IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium, General Chair of the Government Microcircuit Applications Conference, and Director of numerous NATO Institutes. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the IEEE/IRPS. He is the author of over forty technical publications, US patents and a lecturer at the University of Maryland at College Park and the University of Baltimore. Among awards received from NSA are the Meritorious Civilian Service Award, Research Scientist of the Year, Technologist of the Year, Master of the Technical Track and numerous technical-writing awards.