David transitioned his career as a computer scientist professor into an industry research position that ultimately led to a CTO role at Forced Physics. Their heat exchanger product now has the potential to revolutionize any application needing cooling (currently focused on data center computers).
Pipeline Design & Engineering partners with medical device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, or automation equipment but don’t have the bandwidth or resources internally to develop that equipment. You can find us on the web at www.testfixturedesign.com and www.designtheproduct.com
About Being An Engineer
The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.
The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us
David transitioned his career as a computer scientist professor into an industry research position that ultimately led to a CTO role at Forced Physics. Their heat exchanger product now has the potential to revolutionize any application needing cooling (currently focused on data center computers).
Pipeline Design & Engineering partners with medical device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, or automation equipment but don’t have the bandwidth or resources internally to develop that equipment. You can find us on the web at www.testfixturedesign.com and www.designtheproduct.com
About Being An Engineer
The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.
The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us
Welcome to the being an engineer podcast. Our guest today is David Binger. David, welcome to the show. Thanks, sir. David is CTO at forced physics, where your team has developed an advanced technology for cooling data center computers. And, David, I, you're not an engineer, but you are a computer scientist by degree. Is that accurate? That's right, that was gonna tell you that. Yeah. So I'm not an engineer. I've done some software development. But you know, technically speaking, I'm not an engineer. That's okay. That's okay. That this show is for engineering and engineer adjacent roles. So okay. We work with engineers, you definitely qualify. You're right. Yeah. Okay. So, David, your career was started? I think, in academics, you were a professor, is that right?
David Binger:Yeah, that's right. I, my wife and I went to graduate school at the University of Illinois. And when we left there, we both went into academics and college teaching.
Aaron Moncur:So David, what prompted you to move from a career in academics into industry?
David Binger:Well, I was enjoying my academic career at a small college in Kentucky called Center College. And I was lucky enough to be granted some time on a sabbatical leave. And I decided during that time to go try out some professional software development. And at the time, I was particularly interested in the Python programming language. So I looked on the Python job board, and sent out a few emails to people about about job openings. And I was fortunate to get hired at the corporation for national research initiatives in Reston, Virginia, which was the home base for the Python development team at the time. And as it turned out, they are always working with a team of very gifted programmers. And and it was a very exciting work, we were developing the ideas of extreme programming in within the team and working on really high creativity. stuff. And I really liked it. So we decided to, to move there and just stay permanently from what was supposed to be just a one year gig.
Aaron Moncur:What do you think it was about that environment that enticed you it? Was it? I don't know more and more fast paced or just more interesting work?
David Binger:Well, it was more fast paced for sure. the Washington DC area is this is around 2001. was, you know, the economy was very vibrant and thrilling there. And the opportunities for my family were excellent. And the work was was just unbelievably fun. We were so we're really doing a lot of interesting work. It was at a project called the memes exchange, which memes. your listeners is means micro electromechanical systems. So it's the micro machines that are made using the processes that are normally used for making integrated circuits. And what the memes exchange did was did prototyping services for inventors who had ideas for things that they would wanted to make on a very small scale. Some examples of memes project products are. The big one is, is the microphones, the tiny little microphone elements that are in our cell phones or computers that we're using right now are memes devices. And another big one is accelerometers, which at that time, the big application was in airbags in cars for crash detection. But now, of course, there are accelerometers and all of our devices. But the work of the exchange was just really technically and scientifically interesting. and fun.
Aaron Moncur:Can you give us a sense for the scale of these men's applications? I mean, could you can you see these things with the naked eye? Or are these things that have to be visualized on Mike's microscopy?
David Binger:Well, we did have an electron microscope at the metal exchange so that the, the real engineers, the memes engineers, could could look at those devices, the scale of the things that were manufactured there, were on the nano meter to micro meter scale. So there were small and they're made on typically on silicon substrates, just like ordinary tips.
Aaron Moncur:What's, what's the manufacturing process for for a memes application? Is it some kind of chemical etching?
David Binger:Yeah, that's one of the things and that was one of the reasons that the memes exchange was established as the there's a wide range of processes that you can utilize in constructing memes devices. Ranging from there's caught, there's a class of a category of things that are called depositions where you're adding a layer of material to a tip, you might, you know, add a layer of some number of microns of gold, for instance, onto the top of the chip. Sometimes you're putting down photoresist, which is then exposed through a pattern exposure, so that you can create patterns on the chip, that can be etched, then there's a way of removing material through the patterns. So it's sort of a combination of chemistry and geometry. And, and, and the electrical properties are really important too. And that's, you know, those are the part parts that make things like accelerometers work. So they, they, for example, through the fabrication process, you would, you might create a very tiny little beam of solid material, such that when it's subjected to some sort of a g force in one direction, or the other, it deflects the beam a little bit, and that causes some electrical condition, some measurable, measurable change in capacitance or, or some other property that, you know, makes this sensor work.
Aaron Moncur:And where you, were you doing software for this, or were you involved in some of this electromechanical design as well.
David Binger:Not much in the design, although I did end up doing helping a little bit on the on the forced physics part of it. But my job was software. So we had a what the mint exchange did is we had a we called it the world's first distributed fabrication network for memes, prototypes. And we the silicon wafers that the devices were built on were were shipped around by FedEx to laboratories all over the country and university laboratories and commercial and government laboratories. And where the different process specialties are housed. There was sort of an economics problem that the machines that Do you know, for example, there might be a certain photo lithography machine, available in a lab at some University. And we would basically tap into their excess capacity for those machines and we would so this Software really was involved in managing that. managing all the resources and the flows, and the FedEx things and the contracts that, you know, that caused all that to happen. So
Aaron Moncur:was like a crowdsource network back before that term existed.
David Binger:The way we thought about it was as we were sort of like Amazon for this very special class of things that were extremely complicated, because we were there are so many parameters that go into a memory device, you can imagine you have mask layouts, and you have measurements that are made all along the process and all that has to be tracked. And, and even the vocabulary for, for this, for the sequence of processes that are applied to a chip, we essentially developed that vocabulary and the object structures and a complete object database. And actually, the the database itself, was all made in house by our team.
Aaron Moncur:Well, David, you you share that you're not an engineer, but using terms like sequence of processes, you better be careful, your might become an honorary engineer with language like that.
David Binger:We all execute sequences of processes.
Aaron Moncur:Yes, we do. So it was at cnri that you met Scott Davis, who is the CEO of forced physics, is that is that right?
David Binger:Yes, that's right. Scott, came in around 2005 from Southern California, having just formed the company, and with with ideas and patent applications, and some patents granted already at that point. And he came, he came to more than Northern Virginia, just to work with the memes exchange, because we were one of the few places where you could go to have custom memes devices made the, the particular device that we were first contracted to make what's called a hetero scopic turbine, which was implemented by the men of exchange the men's engineers at the men's exchange in a rather heroic fabrication process, because it's and I say that because the hetero scopic turbine consisted of a wafer of silicon with microscopic structures, blades, if you like, created on the outer periphery on the very corner edge of the wafer all the way around. So, it was a it was no one had ever I believe, had ever fabricated anything off to the edge of a silicon wafer like that, and they had to invent new new methods of doing it in order to cause that to happen. The hydroscopic turbine although it was the fabrication moonshot project was completed the testing of that device never was completed because the required to operate under the under the theory that force visits are brought to operate the head or sculpted turbine needed to needed to spin at a at a speed of about 100,000 RPMs so that the tip speeds approach the speed of sound. So, it turned out that that was really hard. That was really hard to do. And I I worked some on that myself. And, and our ability to to To execute that was didn't succeed. And also, at the time, the, and all of that work was funded under an army reach Research Laboratory grant that was awarded to force physics, that research money from the army was redirected to internal projects into the two wars that were in, in progress at that point, so we, we kind of ran out of steam on the header scopic turbine project. So that's that we consider that to be a project on the shelf.
Unknown:Okay,
Aaron Moncur:so shortly after this, you you moved on to force physics as their CTO that was around 2013, I think.
David Binger:Yes, that was I did that we had built. earlier than that, while I was still working at the memes exchange, we have built a follow on device that was a mem scale device for forced physics. Scott, having learned by direct experience, how hard it is to spend a piece of silicon at such a high speed it with perfect control of the movement of it came up with the idea of how to implement the same physics idea that you know, the basis of the company in a device that did not move. So that that was a, we call it a static device, because of that distinction with a static device is really just a large die 30 millimeters square, and it had micro channels that went from one edge of the chip to the other, which is also kind of a weird construction. And the shape of the micro channels was directed by Scott. And it's the shape of those micro channels, that makes them do something with respect to cooling. And, and that was that device was built and tested. very successfully. And, and it was, it was, that was really, the success, there was really the the basis of me quitting my software development job and leaving to go and work full time for force physics.
Aaron Moncur:So let's, let's talk high level just for a second about the forest physics product. It's effectively a heat exchanger, right?
David Binger:Yes, so it's a, it's a, it's a geometry, the range of geometries that are exceptionally good at it moving kinetic energy from a solid into a gas. So it's a heat exchanger.
Aaron Moncur:And I've I've seen this personally, and one of the things that struck me is how incredibly I'm gonna say simple, I'm sure the development of it was not simple, but looking at it, I mean, there there are no moving parts even in there, right.
David Binger:Right, no moving parts in the device itself now does go into a system where there the system has to provide a pressure differential to move the gas the air through the device. So so there's at least one moving part in the system. Sure, yeah. But our device itself is is is a is a non moving non chemical, you know, structure that would typically be implemented in a material that has some thermal conductivity to it. So we we typically use aluminum as the material because it's cheaper than copper. Yeah, we've, we've used about
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, it's it's a really cool looking product. And, and predominantly, it's used cool Data data center computers, what kind of efficiencies? Have you seen using your force physics heat exchanger to cool data center computers versus more more typical cooling technology, at least in that industry? Well,
David Binger:maybe first I should tell you about how, describe what the norm in the industry is the normal Yes, please. So there's a box, there's a CPU, and other components perhaps, but primarily, the CPU is the heat source. The CPU has a heatsink on it, and the air blows through the box with fans that are in the box, and the air as it moves over the heatsink, some of the heat, the heat moves to the air. And it goes out of the back of the box and into the boxes are stacked in racks. And that hot air is dumped into the interior of the facility, the building. And then really responsibility for getting the heat out of the building falls to another system, an air conditioner or a chiller plant. But a sequence of movements of heat, usually from one material to another, involving compressors and pumps. Usually, the at the end of this sequence of processes, you have the heat rejection step where the the heat that originated in the server's gets dumped out to the outside atmosphere, and that's called the heat projection step. Normally, data centers, not always, but normally, for the heat rejection step, they employ water. So they evaporate water in a cooling tower as a way of assisting that heat rejection step. And that's the, the, the reason that a lot of times they just nurse, if you see one, they'll have water towers, a lot of water towers around and sometimes clouds of water vapor moving up into the air and carrying heat with them away from the data center. The force physics approach really takes that heat rejection step and moves it all the way into the server enclosure itself and into our heat exchanger. So what we do instead of all of the complicated steps is we we take outside air and we bring it filtered directly through the server enclosure. And it goes through our our special heat exchanger, which is thermally in contact with a processor. And, and it picks up heat, it actually picks up you know, all of the heat of the processor and, and the output air is is really hot as a result. And actually, it's so hot at, for example, 170 degrees Fahrenheit, that it's not really worth it to cool it down again, with air conditioners or anything. So we just we dumped that hot air back out into the outside atmosphere directly. So okay, the advantage of this is we get rid of all of that equipment that traditional data centers use for cooling the air before it goes into the racks. And,
Aaron Moncur:yeah, that right, there is a huge savings. I mean, we're not talking about, you know, some kind of small refrigeration system that might fit on your desktop, we're talking about large industrial equipment that you've effectively eliminated, right?
David Binger:That's right. And it's an it's on an incredible scale. Actually, the data centers of the world are currently and have been for a long time being built at at really as fast as the world can do it. And, and they're building all of these systems, including the what they call the mechanical systems for cooling the air down, that goes into the racks And, and we're gonna, we're gonna take that off the bill of materials for data centers.
Aaron Moncur:Amazing. And will your heat exchanger perform as efficiently as these these large, heavily engineered cooling systems that have historically been used?
David Binger:Yeah, yeah. The incredible thing is where we are technology, the system that uses article technology, the amount of energy that's required to move, heat from the processor out of the building averages only 2% of the heat load in here in the Arizona climate, that's a really low amount of energy for cooling. In comparison, a typical Data Center here in Phoenix, will, will typically use at least 40% of the heat load for the cooling systems, additional energy. So So we've reduced the amount of energy that's required for the cooling system by more than 90%. From its from its current. And what's more, we, with our system, we get rid of the need for server fans. And people may not realize it, but the fans that are inside electronics, equipment, enclosures, use their own energy, and not only do they use their own energy, they actually add to the heat load of the whole building into the air conditioners that are there. So when you when you get rid of server fans, you you eliminate a lot of costs, and you reduce energy usage by by a significant amount more. So the number we usually use is 8% as a as a comparable, but in some systems, server fans use a lot more energy than that.
Aaron Moncur:So data center computers is that the primary market that force physics is focusing on right now. Are there other applications beyond data center computers that your technology can be used for?
David Binger:Yes. You know, engineers now that almost all machines that, that operate using energy are in some sense limited in their performance, by their ability to remove the heat that they inevitably generate. And so all of those machines will benefit and have their performance ranges extended. By having cooling solutions that are more effective than what they're using today. At force physics, we've, when we have talked to people about this technology over the years, people typically learn about this and they're very, you know, excited by the prospect of it and they start thinking of hundreds of other things that this could be applied to, typically they lose a little bit of sleep. Because this is such an unusual, you know, discovery. And, and, and so they're they're just a world of things, you know, from engines, to, to lasers to the solar systems. Really, it's just, there's just a very long list of potential applications. And we've really made a we've had to kind of work to stay focused on one thing. And we've been really good at that, in our in our intent is to deliver the value of this discovery to the data center market where it's so valuable that that will will will be a thriving business delivering that value. And then once that that foothold is clearly established, then we'll, we'll develop applications for other markets. So we'll just start picking off other markets one after the other.
Aaron Moncur:That's really impressive that your team has been able to stay so laser focused on the data center market. Being a business owner, myself, I know how easy it is to get distracted by shiny objects, so to speak. And it sounds like there could be a lot of shiny app objects for this technology. But just looking at the data center market for now, what what are the next hurdles or challenges that your company has to overcome before you just blow this technology up, and it's it's everywhere worldwide, everyone's using it.
David Binger:The challenge has been over the last year really the last challenge. So we have we have energy efficiency, we have low cost we you know, we have really, it's a slam dunk argument, except for one thing, and that is the form factor that we were building. And what we call the jewel force conductor is a 20 inch long by four and a quarter inch wide by one and a half inch thick, rectangular tube of aluminum that has the patented heating elements built inside it. We assumed that our customers would build the electronics to fit the cooling solution, because of the incredible advantages that it offers. But that is harder than we expected. And it's certainly something that can be done. But what what we've, what we've really done is responded to customer feedback. Customers would say, you know, this is clearly game changing world changing technology. At the moment, I have these servers I need to to cool. And they because of the way they're put together. They don't really fit your product, the job force conductor. So so we listened to that. And what we've done really in the past two months, is developed a new form factor that does adapt to any motherboard. So we call it a micro conductor. And the micro conductor is is we're really taking the same blades that were have the manufacturing processes for and we're packaging them in smaller units that essentially replace the heat sinks that are on motherboards. And, and this means that all of the advantages of forced physics, technology, that tremendous energy savings that are available, are really for the first time immediately applicable to really any motherboard, and honestly pretty much any kind of electronics. So we really think that's the last hurdle. And so we're we're we're building out the prototype systems that, that demonstrate that. And it's pretty clear to us that from the initial feedback we have from customer conversations is that this is this is the the advancement that will really make this go so so the challenge for us will be putting together the enclosures and and sort of mechanical structures that put these things together for for, you know, to meet customer needs and to ramp up our production processes so that we can be ready to serve the needs of large volume customers. So we're really expecting hyperscale customers. So the large data center companies to be the leaders in this
Aaron Moncur:that is super exciting. I mean you've sold other big issues now. It sounds like you're about to be out to the races a year from now for us physics could be a very different company not different in you know technology but different in size and scale.
David Binger:Yes, it will be certainly will will be addressing the needs of a fast growing group of customers, and, and engaging a range of contract manufacturers to deliver to build the things that those customers needs. And, and, and so yeah, so it's gonna, it's gonna be it's gonna be a rapid change for our company, which has been, you know, small this whole time. And but we've been, we've spent a long time getting ready for this moment. So that it's
Aaron Moncur:a bit you have. Yeah, well, congratulations. That's very exciting.
David Binger:Thanks, Aaron. Hey, Aaron, your company might be able to help our company too. But as well, we'll probably have a lot of design work to do. So just let us know.
Aaron Moncur:We'd be happy to support that. Yeah, for sure. Thanks. Thank you for the plug there. That's right. David, do you do you work with the engineers directly? Or is your role, you know, kind of far separated from the the day to day engineering?
David Binger:Well, we're a small team. So everybody works with everybody in our company. There, there are. Darrin Kushner is our Director of manufacturing. And Carl Ito is is our lead designer. And it's really the three of us that were together on, on concept and implementation. And in most of my work is really more conceptual. As I'm talking to customers, and trying to make sure that what we build is, is what they want.
Aaron Moncur:Okay, well, you may or may not have an answer you feel as good for this question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. And you can just let me know, if you feel like you can respond to this. Let's, let's pretend that I am one of the the staff engineers, you know, I'm on the front line, I'm the one that's doing the day to day engineering work driving the CAD box, because a lot of our listeners, that's who they are these engineers, so if I wanted these engineers who really wants to impress my boss and make his or her life easy, from your standpoint, what are a few things that that I can do?
David Binger:I think the important thing is to, to communicate well. And frequently. I think it's, it's better this is something I learned in the software world from the the the development methodology called extreme programming, which is now called agile programming, okay, so there, so the way people program now is a new thing back then. And one of the key elements of that is having a short iteration cycles. And a, in a, in a close coupling, you might say, between the customer or the customer representative, and the and the implementers. So that to make sure that the business value the customer needs are really constantly connected to the implementation. So So my advice for people doing drawings is, is to look up from your computer frequently and talk to people.
Aaron Moncur:Excellent advice. Very, very good advice. Thank you for that. I just have one more question for you. You mentioned that the the original design of your jewel force compressor had to be changed.
David Binger:Okay, stop its conductor. I got it.
Aaron Moncur:I'm sorry, conductor, thank you for correcting conductor, I should just say jfcs. I don't sound dumb. But the jaw force conductor, you had to change the form factor. And you mentioned that I think what you said was about two months, you turn that around, that's an impressively short amount of time to repackage a product can can you share any of the best practices or strategies that your team has used to kind of accelerate that that development process
David Binger:I think, yes, we did that pretty fast with the thing that helped was that the design elements, and even even the, the primary components are the fans, the blade structure are the same in these two in these two embodiments, let's say, of the same invention. So it really didn't take that much. So, so it wasn't that that huge of a leap to go from one to the other out, I would say. So I say, I don't think we have any special insight about going fast. You know, when you're, when you're doing things that require a lot of detail. As I know, you you're familiar with, you know, there's, there's, there's always some tedious stuff that has to get done. And I'm afraid we don't have any special magic for that.
Aaron Moncur:Well, our engineering manager, Michael, he likes to say if you need to go fast, slow down. And I think that's a really good piece of advice.
David Binger:Yeah. And, you know, that's something that in the software world, you know, people that was really part of the problem that, that the the development methodology called extreme programming that I mentioned, was trying to address was that the, the, the, the, the impedance mismatch between what can be done and, and, and what's desired. Really makes things worse. So in a software development team, you know, you might add more people to the process, and actually slow it down significantly. And I'm sure that's the same in any type of engineering teamwork.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, yeah. Well, David, if folks listening to this, want to get a hold of you, or force physics and learn more about your technology, what's the best way to get a hold of you and your company?
David Binger:Well, if they were, if they remember the name course, physics, they can just Google that in the website, and there's some email addresses on there, you can send email to certain I am always happy to hear from people there on LinkedIn. And, and, or directly by email or by phone. I mean, not. I, I, I get a lot of inquiries from different directions, and I enjoy them. So try and contact her directly. Yeah.
Aaron Moncur:Great. Well, thank you so much, David, for sharing about your past your experience and the forced physics technology. It's been super interesting. I am really excited to see where these heat exchangers go, what kind of success they see over the next year to three, as I'm sure you are, as well, but but thank you for spending your time with us today and being on the being an engineer podcast. Thanks very much here. This has been fun talking. I'm Aaron Moncure, founder of pipeline design, and engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please leave us a positive review. It really helps other people find the show. To learn how your engineering team can leverage our team's expertise in developing turnkey custom test fixtures, automated equipment and product design, visit us at test fixture design.com Thanks for listening.