Thermoelectric energy scavenging and performance improvement in thermally constrained mobile computers

Thermoelectric (TE) energy harvesting is investigated in this study for compact mobile computers. A suitable hotspot is identified for TE integration based on thermal modeling and characterization of a target system. Under maximum workload conditions, 0.410 mW of electrical power is thermoelectrically harvested without any notable degradation in performance. An enhancement to the system thermal design is proposed for a projected 240% improvement in harvested power and 4% improvement in CPU+GMCH thermal design power (TDP) envelop. Calculations suggest 10% increase in Seebeck efficiency of new TE materials will increase the power generation by an additional 10%, and TDP envelop by an additional 3%.

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