ee times recently reported on darpa's mto (microelectronics technology office) being re-missioned at the forefront of efforts to solve nagging cost and complexity issues that plague many modern weapon systems.   given issues with the f-35, one has to wonder, are some weapons systems just too complex and too much money? could there not be another way?  it seems the mto is going to tackle that issue head on.

but what does that do to the cooling part?  many of these weapons systems require significant compute power to make them work.  as tech times notes in a story on the f-35:

the f-35 is like a flying computer. one test pilot compared the plane to a star wars striker having an r2d2 as its brain. the jet depends on a computer dubbed as "alis" that interacts with the pilot via a high-technology helmet costing $500,000 each.

a cray in a helmet?  probably not, but whatever the underlying systems that make alis, it is likely a significant amount of computing power.  and speaking of cost and complexity, alis's architecture contains a good deal of cots; how do you modify that to make it chepaer and better?  seems like a tall order.

and significant computer power requires significant cooling. its not a trivial matter.  consider the work of dr. avram bar cohen's team at darpa mto.   they are working with industry and academia on intrachip/interchip advanced cooling; liquid cooling in  the chip.  will such a foreward looking approach to junction temperature management fit in with the mto's new mission?  we hope so.