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72 PCB007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2023 and develop their skills. Sanmina does a lot of our own training and have found that our investment in people creates a stable environ- ment. We really put down roots in communi- ties and stay a very long time given the invest- ments we make in our people and the fabs that we build. PCB007 Travis Kelly is CEO is Isola- Group and current chairman of the Printed Circuit Board Association of America. To read past columns, click here. gress needs to take a holistic view and pass leg- islation and make policy decisions that address the entire ecosystem. What needs to be done to attract new workers? I think every employer faces a challenge in attracting and retaining talented employees. While Sanmina has been able to win more than our fair share, it has not come easily. We need great employees that are similar to the make- up of American society in general. Sanmina is always looking for strong technical talent, but we also need people with a high school educa- tion who are willing to work with us to train Next-generation electronics will feature smaller and more powerful components that require new solutions for cooling. A new thermoelectric cooler developed by Penn State scientists greatly improves the cooling power and efficiency compared to cur- rent commercial thermoelectric units and may help control heat in future high-power electronics, the researchers said. "Our new material can provide thermoelectric devices with very high cooling power density," said Bed Poudel, research professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State. "We were able to demonstrate that this new device can not only be competitive in terms of technoeco- nomic measures but outperform the current lead- ing thermoelectric cooling modules. The new gen- eration of electronics will benefit from this develop- ment." Thermoelectric coolers transfer heat from one side of the device to the other when electricity is applied, creating a module with cold and hot sides. But as those components become more powerful, thermoelectric coolers will also need to pump more heat, the scientists said. The new thermoelectric device showed a 210% enhancement in cooling power density compared to the leading commercial device, made of bismuth telluride, while potentially maintaining a similar coef- ficient of performance (COP), or the ratio of useful cooling to energy required, the scientists reported in Nature Communications. The new device is made from a compound of half-Heusler alloys, a class of materials with special properties that show promise for energy applications like thermoelectric devices. These materials offer good strength, thermal stabil- ity and efficiency. "This solves two out of the three big challenges in making thermoelectric cooling devices," said Sha- shank Priya, vice president for research at the Uni- versity of Minnesota and a co-author on the paper. "First, it can provide a high cooling power density with a high COP. This means a small amount of elec- tricity can pump a lot of heat." (Source: Penn State) New High-power Thermoelectric Device May Provide Cooling in Next-gen Electronics