Iceotope Mentioned as Top 50 Hottest Early Stage Startups in the World

Last week's Dublin Web Summit was attended by 4,000 people. Attendees watched two days of speeches and exhibits by leaders in the technology industry. In addition, 250 startup companies set up in the conference halls, eager to share information, seek investors, and attract potential customers. 

Over 1,000 companies from 36 countries applied for the Electric Ireland Spark of Genius Award. Iceotope was selected as one of the top 50 award finalists, selected based on the combination of innovation with productivity to generate excitement and influence in a competitive environment.

A sustainable cooling solution for servers

A unique cooling system using 3M™ Novec™ Engineered Fluids has been launched to provide a low cost, low energy solution to prevent servers from over-heating.

Designed, engineered and manufactured by Sheffield-based Iceotope Research and Development Ltd in conjunction with 3M and the University of Leeds, the integrated server platform reduces the energy used to cool IT equipment by 97 per cent as it doesn’t need chillers and air conditioning units.
Data centres currently account for around 5 per cent of the UK’s energy consumption and it costs just as much to cool servers using air conditioning systems as it does to run them.

“Researchers predict that the world’s data centres will consume 19 per cent more energy in the next 12 months than they have in the past year,” said Peter Hopton, founder and chief technical officer of Iceotope. “In order to try to combat this increase in power consumption, we need to start looking at technology that will help not only reduce the environmental footprint, but also help reduce the costs associated with power and cooling in data centres and other high-performing computing environments.

“Through our research with the University of Leeds and 3M, we’re excited about the impact our solution will have on data centre design and location.”

With Iceotope’s innovative liquid system, servers are encapsulated in a sealed unit with 3M™ Novec™ fluids acting as an inert coolant. This eliminates the need for air conditioning and harvests the heat from 20 kilowatts of IT equipment using just 80 watts of power. The harvested heat can then be reused or passively cooled.

As the system is silent and fully sealed with the electronics protected from the environment, the need to locate servers in a ‘clean building’ away from people is reduced. This creates the added benefit of providing more flexibility for the location of servers and has the potential to reduce the costs associated with purpose-built clean data rooms.

Said Keith Deakin, principal design engineer for Iceotope Research and Development: “The system has been designed to provide a sustainable end-to-end liquid cooling system for whole data centres. The motherboard is encapsulated in a sealed module containing a Novec fluid and this is used to harvest the heat from every component on the board. The heat is then transferred into a separate sealed water channel within the cabinet.

“Gravity, combined with a simple pump, moves the water around the circuits in the cabinet and the heat is then transferred through heat exchangers connected back to the building’s water supply.
“Our ethos is to keep the servers at their optimum working temperature by using as little energy as possible.”

The 3M™ Novec™ Engineered Fluid was chosen by Iceotope as it is a high-performing inert chemical coolant with environmental benefits.

Said Keith: “As well as being very good at convecting heat away from the heat-generating components on the motherboard, Novec fluid’s environmental impact is as low as we can find for such a coolant. It is thermally stable, non-ozone depleting and has a very low global warming potential.”

3M sales manager, Adrian Hyner, and technical sales specialist for 3M’s Electronics Markets Materials division, Mark Nursall, have worked closely with Iceotope on the development of the solution since the company was set up as an offshoot of a computer firm three years ago.

Said Mark: “Novec fluids have excellent heat-transfer properties compared to other dielectric fluids and is recyclable, offering an excellent balance between performance, safety and the environment.“Using a non-flammable coolant rather than a potentially flammable solution improves safety as well as making a dramatic overall reduction in electricity costs.

“The system also incorporates the latest award-winning high performance 3M™ Twin Axial Cables to transmit high speed data signals from the module to the back panel. In addition, 3M™ Scotchcast™ resin has been used to seal the entry point to the module. The introduction of these additional 3M technologies further enhanced the cost and performance benefits of the Iceotope platform solution.”

The Iceotope system been tested at a Swiss bank and is also being tested in operation at leading research universities in the UK and will be available for delivery towards the end of the year.

http://solutions.3m.co.uk/wps/portal/3M/en_GB/4Sight/home/-/topstories/5/?WT.svl=f1top5

Elektra Awards Finalists

A panel of independent judges has made its decisions as part of the Elektra European Electronics Industry Awards 2012, and the shortlisted finalists in each of the award categories are published below.

The winners will be announced at an Elektra Awards Dinner and Christmas Party which takes place on Wednesday 12th December at the Park Plaza, Westminster Bridge in London.

The established annual highpoint of the electronics industry, the Elektra Awards gives the industry the opportunity to recognise the achievements of individuals and companies across Europe. They are designed to promote best practice in key areas including, innovation, sales growth and employee motivation.

Awards shortlists

Design Team of the Year
(Sponsored by CadSoft Computer)
ByteSnap Design - Design of vehicle charging posts for London 2012
eosemi - Design of an all-CMOS replacement for crystal oscillators
TT electronics – Design a medical implant for treating high blood pressure
 
Distributor of the Year
(Sponsored by IC Resources)
Anglia Components
Caltest Instruments
Farnell element14
Mouser Electronics
RS Components
TTI

Green Electronics Award
(Sponsored by National Instruments)
ebm-papst Mulfingen - CO2 emissions reduction at European facilities
Ericsson Power Modules – Reduction in life-cycle impact of products in operation
Farnell element14 - Packaging recycling project including free customer collection
TT electronics - Sensor product uses 42% less in plastic packaging

Manufacturer Export Award
(Sponsored by Agilent Technologies)
Marl International
United EMS
Zytronic

New Company of the Year
(Sponsored by International Rectifier)
Gnodal
Iceotope
Triggertrap

Educational Support Award
(Sponsored by Pinnacle Marketing Communications)
Aeroflex - £2.5m investment in wireless labs at Lancaster University and University College London
Analog Devices - University programme provides “hands-on learning”
Harwin - University programme providing technical, sponsorship and free products
Parallel Systems - Provides free Cadence OrCAD software to UK students
Rohde & Schwarz - €7.5m in financial assistance given to European universities
Silica - A competition prize of £3,000 for three UK university students

Design Tools and development software Award
ByteSnap Design - SnapUI lightweight development framework
Cadence Design Systems – Encounter analysis system for 3D ICs
CadSoft Computer - CAD tool with ASCII XML data structure
Mentor Graphics - RealTimeCalibre tool provides sign-off DFM feedback
Synopsys - Out-of-the-box support for ARM big.LITTLE processing designs
Xilinx – Vivado FPGA design tool supports C++ to HDL

Embedded System Product of the Year
Altera - 28nm system-on-chip FPGA
Freescale Semiconductor - Kinetis L series ARM Cortex-M0+ microcontroller
Intersil - Pico-qHD low cost pico projector system
Maxim Integrated Products - Smart meter platform with integrated security
RFEL - Fast Fourier transform FPGA core
Silicon Laboratories - Precision32 crystal-less USB controller

Passive & Electromechanical Product of Year
(Sponsored by Arrow)
AVX - 75V single-anode tantalum polymer capacitor
Harting - Han-Fast Lock high current PCB connector
Murata - Low ESR, electrical double layer capacitor
Melexis – Triaxis Hall effect magnetic sensor
Omron Electronic Components – G8P relay with large contact gap for high voltages
Syfer Technology - Multilayer chip capacitors with protective coating

Power System Product of the Year
(Sponsored by Harting Technology Group)
Amantys - Power Drive gate driver module
Cree - High efficiency 50A silicon carbide devices
Linear Technology - µModule isolated DC-DC converter with transformer
N2Power – Small 260W AC-DC power supply
Powervation - PV3101 single phase digital DC/DC controller
SemiSouth Laboratories - 650V silicon carbide JFET

Renewable Energy Design Award
(Sponsored by MSC Gleichmann UK)
Analog Devices - ADP1046 power controller
Diverse Energy - fuel cell technology
Heliatek – Organic photovoltaic material
Zeta Specialist Lighting - Solar powered paddle for lighting road signs

Semiconductor Product of the Year - Analogue
(Sponsored by Mouser Electronics)
ams - AS3935 Franklin lightning sensor IC
Linear Technology – LTC4366 overvoltage protection controller for 9-500V
Integrated Device Technology – IDT 90E46 single phase power metering SoC International Rectifier - PowIRstage integrated buck gate driver, mosfets and Schottky diode
Maxim Integrated Products – MAX44007 digital ambient light sensor
Microsemi - Low power body area network IC

Semiconductor Product of the Year - Digital
(Sponsored by Rohde & Schwarz)
Altera - Combining FPGA with optical transceiver modules in a single package
Freescale - Vybrid microcontroller combines ARM Cortex-A5 and Cortex-M4 cores
Lattice Semiconductor - iCE40 low power mobileFPGAs
LSI - SandForce SSD flash storage processor
Texas Instruments – Wolverine MSP430 microcontroller
Xilinx - Virtex-7 FPGAs with stacked silicon interconnect technology

Solid-State Lighting Application Award
(Sponsored by Anglia)
Arrow Electronics - LEDagon reference design combines LEDs with thermal management and control
Cree - XSP series high efficiency LED street light
LED Engin - ViviLux family of high-efficiency LED emitters
OMC - Spectralux Light Engines for all-in-one LED lighting design
Oxley Developments - LED aircraft landing light suitable to replace halogen technology
Plessey Semiconductors – Magic series high brightness LEDs on a gallium nitride-on-silicon substrate


Test Product of the Year
Agilent Technologies - Infiniium 90000Q 63GHz oscilloscope
JTAG Technologies - AutoBuzz automated boundary-scan software
LeCroy - LabMaster 10Zi 65GHz oscilloscope
Newton’s 4th - PPA1500 power analyser
National Instruments - PXIe-5644R RF vector signal transceiver, software-designed instrument
Rohde & Schwarz - ZNB network analyser
Yokogawa - Software package for the testing standby power

Other special awards
Rising Star New Engineer of the Year(Sponsored by Farnell element14)
University Department of the Year
(Sponsored by RS Components)
New Product - Product Innovation Award (Sponsored by Avnet Electronics Marketing EMEA)
Company of the Year
Lifetime Achievement Award

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/03/10/2012/54687/elektra-awards-finalists.htm

Damned Statistics...

Do you know your PUE from your FVER? Energy metrics are now regarded as a key means of demonstrating your 'greenness'. But which system should you be considering?

Popular efficiency metrics such as PUE (power usage effectiveness) have undoubtedly been successful in getting the data centre industry to wise up to the problem of energy efficiency. However, while many organisations have followed its principles with rigour, its popularity has led some in the industry to 'juke' the stats, rendering hollow figures, rather than useful efficiency measurements.

This was one of Greenpeace's main concerns in its 'How green is your cloud report' (featured in Green IT), as businesses were able to provide low PUE figures, it stated, without actually being energy efficient or environmentally responsible.

 PUE is by no means the only efficiency metric within the data centre industry, of course, but no other has achieved the same level of adoption industry-wide. The new data centre energy efficiency metric FVER (Fixed to Variable Energy Ratio) aims to change all that. Rather than measuring IT in the same way you would utility services such as water and electricity, FVER targets waste. It might serve the industry well in the future to incorporate measures such as this as part of a wider efficiency strategy within data centres - and to use any metric as only one factor in efficiency measurement, rather than the be-all and end-all statistic. "It's on the basis of PUE's success that we can now evaluate the potential of new efficiency metric FVER to help improve current efficiency measures and instil necessary behavioural changes within the industry," asserts Peter Hopton, Iceotope CTO and founder.

"Given that FVER is measured as a determinate figure from one to infinity, like PUE the lower the number, the better. This makes it likely to be understood and embraced by C level executives, as well as data centre operators."

 The premise behind FVER is simple; it assumes your data centre is made up of a sum of two loads, a fixed load that would exist, if the data centre was inactive, and a variable load that would be maxed out when the data centre was full to capacity. This metric allows data centre operators to measure the difference between the two states and, as a result, evaluate the efficiency of their systems.

LARGER IMPACT
"In crude terms, the greater the difference between the fixed and variable energy figures, the lower the FVER figure," Hopton explains "But, crucially, the fixed energy figure has a significantly larger impact on the solution than the variable energy figure. As a result, this metric encourages data centre operators to target the fixed load, rather than the variable energy, and following this method could lead to data centres operating much more efficiently.

EASY CHOICE "
To put forward an example, if your data centre's average server utilisation is ten per cent and you are given two options - reduce the fixed load or reduce the peak power consumption, while keeping the fixed load constant - which would you choose? Reducing the fixed load will be nine times more effective than reducing the peak power consumption. FVER is reflective of this, and makes both energy waste and potential efficiency gains much more visible." With technology in general, functional value is largely consistent with energy/ resources used or financial expenditure. "For example, you'd expect your television to require more energy when transmitting video than when on standby, your car to use more fuel when in motion than when stationary and to be charged more by your mobile provider for your current model than the long forgotten handset locked away in a desk drawer," he points out. The data centre industry does not follow this system, as a rule. Energy used remains at a somewhat consistent level, regardless of the 'useful work' being conducted - this ensures costs also remain high when minimal work is actually being done. "As puzzling as this may sound, what really baffles is that these facilities may not even be considered inefficient," adds Hopton. "In fact, dependent on the metrics and measurements used, they may be seen as running highly efficiently." Like all metrics, FVER is not perfect. Systems such as liquid cooling will have a worse FVER rating than an air cooled system, despite being much more efficient - as fans are a strong (but wasteful) variable load. "FVER will, however, cause people to think about the fans inside their servers, encouraging them to throttle down. FVER also targets software, encouraging it to allow the server to reduce its power consumption when the software is underutilised."

PART OF THE WHOLE
Ultimately, FVER should be used as part of a larger sustainability structure, utilised alongside other measures and efficiency metrics like PUE and combined with straightforward common sense, Hopton advises. "Whether there could be an efficiency metric that covers all areas of energy efficiency, or indeed whether there should be, is a debate for another time," he suggests. "If FVER can somehow help users recognise where their systems are wasteful or inefficient, this could pave the way for substantial energy efficiency measures in the future, similar to those we first saw with the introduction of PUE."

NEXT PPRIORITY
BCS data centre specialist group secretary and Romonet CTO Liam Newcombe is another advocate for FVER. "A major part of the potential efficiency improvement in the data centre is now locked up in the fixed 'base-load' power draw. Correcting this issue should be the next priority for data centre operators and the wider industry," he argues. "In an ideal data centre, whatever the power draw, when the IT platforms are at peak load, it would be zero when the IT platforms are delivering no services. The DC FVER metric provides a way for operators to measure how well their IT and site energy consumption tracks the useful work delivered by their IT platforms." Peter Hopton, Iceotope CTO and founder.

Iceotope wins Startup Product of the Year

Guests gathered at Dartmouth House, Mayfair, last week to celebrate their achievements and the participants represented the very best and most innovative cases within the IT industry today.

This award acknowledges Iceotope’s innovative liquid cooling system, launched earlier in the year, which can provide full-time free cooling for IT anywhere on the planet. Techworld’s Startup Product of the Year award is given to ‘the best and the brightest innovators’ and is intended to predict the products and services which will most impact the IT industry in the future and business practices in general.

Sheffield's Iceotope was recognised not only for its current application within the IT industry, but also its capability to address some of the most pressing issues expected to arise in the future – including IT’s rising energy usage, the spiralling costs of running a data centre and the need to find sustainable IT solutions.

Peter Hopton, CTO at Iceotope, says, “We are thrilled with this win for our cooling solution – years of research and development have been involved, and we have had fantastic support from organisations like 3M and the University of Leeds throughout. It’s great to see this hard work being rewarded and knowing that truly innovative and disrupting technology still gets the recognition it deserves."

http://www.blmforum.net/en/blm/IT/1069

Iceotope Wins Techworld's Startup Product of the Year!

Iceotope’s liquid cooling system, capable of providing 24/7 free cooling anywhere on the planet, is recognised for its impact on the IT industry.

Iceotope is proud to announce that its liquid cooling solution has been named ‘Startup Product of the Year’ at this year’s Techworld Awards – an accolade determined by an esteemed panel of judges including key members the IT press, industry analysts and experts .

Rewarding all sectors within the IT industry, the Techworld Awards honoured companies, teams and projects across 11 separate categories at the awards ceremony last week. Guests gathered at Dartmouth House, Mayfair, London on Thursday 13th September to celebrate their achievements and the participants represented the very best and most innovative cases within the IT industry today.

This award acknowledges Iceotope’s innovative liquid cooling system, launched earlier in the year, which can provide full-time free cooling for IT anywhere on the planet. Techworld’s ‘Startup Product of the Year’ award is given to ‘the best and the brightest innovators’ and is intended to predict the products and services which will most impact the IT industry in the future and business practices in general.

Iceotope was recognised not only for its current application within the IT industry, but also its capability to address some of the most pressing issues expected to arise in the future – including IT’s rising energy usage, the spiralling costs of running a data centre and the need to find sustainable IT solutions.

 “We are thrilled with this win for our cooling solution – years of research and development have been involved, and we have had fantastic support from organisations like 3M™ and the University of Leeds throughout. It’s great to see this hard work being rewarded and knowing that truly innovative and disrupting technology still gets the recognition it deserves,” commented Peter Hopton, CTO at Iceotope.

Conference platform for city's technology...

GREEN technology from Sheffield that cuts down on waste heat is to go on show at a political party conference. City-based Iceotope will showcase its technology - designed to cut data centre energy bills by half and re-use the waste heat they generate - at next month's Conservative Party Conference.

lceotope is one of a dozen fina lists in a competition to reward innovative startups that was launched by Prime Minister David Cameron and is backed by Fujitsu, lrunarsat and the British Venture Capital Association.

Peter Hopton, from lceotope, the founder of eco-friendly PC company, VeryPC, said: "This is a great honour for lceotope as it gives us a fantastic opportunity to showcase our technology to scores of influential people. "We knew a diverse group of organisations would be se lected in order to highlight the very best of UK innovation. "We feel that Iceotope has the potential to revolutionise the data centre industry as we know it, which is why we wanted to be included." Simon Blagden, from Fujitsu said the finalists were all motivated and optimistic people with an innovative approach and a strong understanding of the marketplace they were targeting.

http://www.thestar.co.uk/